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 This book was presented by 
 
 THE NATIONAL FOREST 
 PRODUCTS ASSOCIATION 
 
 h\fRS. ASSW; 
 
 I I. D. C. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
 S00725531 N 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE DATE 
 INDICATED BELOW AND IS SUB- 
 JECT TO AN OVERDUE FINE AS 
 POSTED AT THE CIRCULATION 
 DESK. 
 
 OCT ^ 4 1979 
 SEP 2 ^ 1993 
 
 30M-10/72 
 
FOREST FANCIES 
 
THE SURPLICE OF SPRING 
 
FOREST FANCIES 
 
 BY 
 LUCY CHARLTON KELLERHOUSE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
Copyright, 1917, by 
 LUCY C. KELLERHOUSE 
 
LOROL: 
 
 I inscribe to you 
 these little stories 
 told me by the trees. 
 
a 
 
 ^If one wishes to study the 
 life — not the mere structure — of 
 an apple-tree in bloom, he must 
 surrender himself at the start to 
 the bloom and fragrance; for 
 these are not mere external 
 phases of the growth of the 
 tree — ^they are most delicate and 
 characteristic disclosures of its 
 life." 
 
 Hamilton Wright Mabie. 
 
BEFORE WE ENTER THE FOREST 
 
 Come, let us enter the Forest, leaving the 
 world behind. Here the trees will tell us of 
 themselves and their work — ^what they do for 
 you and for me. The Forest speaks to all who 
 will listen, though every one translates its mes- 
 sage in a different way. Four men once en- 
 tered the forest: a scientist, a pastor, a 
 teacher, and a poet. The scientist brought 
 away a treatise ; the pastor, a text ; the teacher, 
 a lesson; and the poet, a song. I, too, found 
 my way into the Forest ; and all that I heard 
 there I put into words, which took the form of 
 a story. 
 
 One day I showed my story to a forester, 
 who loves the wildwoods of our land ; and he 
 paused in his busy work to read what the trees 
 had told to me. As these stories are not really 
 mine, but only my interpretation of what the 
 
BEFORE WE ENTER THE FOREST 
 
 Forest will reveal to everj^ listener^ I will re- 
 peat what that forester said: 
 
 *^I have just finished reading your admir- 
 able articles. Will you let me say I have read 
 them with the keenest pleasure. Their dainti- 
 ness, kindliness, originality, and charming 
 fancy have made me enjoy them very much in- 
 deed. I sincerely hope they may be published 
 and widely circulated, for they are far too good 
 to be suppressed. They will be read with profit 
 and delight. 
 
 GiFFORD PlNCHOT.''^ 
 
 And now, to the Forest Service for its pic- 
 tures of the woods, and to all who have helped 
 show me the way, let me gladly offer thanks, 
 before we enter the Forest, 
 
FOREST STORIES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 QUERCUS ^ 
 
 The Sugar Mook 25 
 
 A Sylvan Easter ^^ 
 
 The Lindek-Tree of Jonsboda 75 
 
 Forest Leaves ^^ 
 
 The Merry Greenwood 117 
 
 The Fruit of the Christmas Tree 143 
 
FOREST PICTURES 
 The Sueplice of Spring Frontispiece 
 
 Facing 
 Page 
 
 QuERcus Offered Himself Up to the Teeth 
 
 OF THE Saw 10 
 
 And So He Went from Tree to Tree 26 
 
 The Scattered Maples on the Hillside 30 
 
 Uncle Isaac, Long and Lean, Came to Help 
 
 IN THE Sugar Bush 40 
 
 Little Bells with Euby Clappers 54 
 
 The White Poplar Was Already Awake. . 58 
 
 The Cottonwood 60 
 
 The Boxelder Was Green 62 
 
 Easter Chimes 66 
 
 The White Birch and the Beech Tree ... 68 
 
 The Pomp and Glory of Spring 72 
 
 The Sweetness of Its Summer Bloom 82 
 
 Far Beyond the Valley 98 
 
 **Come, Eest Under My Branches" 102 
 
 Drivers Guided Them into the Current. . 108 
 
 In a Quiet Harbor 110 
 
 Once Upon a Time There Was a Forest 118 
 
 The Conquest of the Forest 122 
 
 The Eoots that Bound the Earth, the 
 Boughs that Shaded the Moist Earth, 
 
 Were Gone 126 
 
 *'FuLL TO THE Brim Our Eivers Flowed". . 130 
 He Meted Out Land for Farm and for 
 
 Forest 136 
 
 A Little Balsam-Fir Tree Grew in a Forest 144 
 
 Christmas in the Woods 156 
 
QUERCUS 
 
QUERCUS 
 
 Our virtue should not be a deed, or a work, but 
 a growth — a growth like a tree's, always rising 
 higher from its own inward strength and sap. 
 — Pliillips Brooks. 
 
 :ERE are some lazy acorns!'' 
 shouted the wind, slapping an 
 old oak so briskly that Quer- 
 cus let go the bough and fell 
 to earth. 
 
 This was his first contact with the world. 
 There he sat on the moss, like the cat on the 
 mat in the primer; yet he did not long for 
 greater prominence, for to be obscure is to be 
 secure. 
 
 ''Ah!" cried he, as something light and 
 
 winged whirled by, ' ' airy fairy, who are you ? ' ' 
 
 ''I am little Pinus," answered the winged 
 
 3 
 
4 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 one, sinking to rest. '^Dear me, I'm all out of 
 breath, for IVe waltzed across the valley!'' 
 
 **A long way from home for one so yoimg," 
 observed Quercus, cuddling down among the 
 falling leaves. '^Nothing doing, so I may as 
 well go to sleep. Be sure to wake me when 
 spring comes." And before he knew it, he 
 was sleeping as soundly as Rip Van Winkle. 
 
 When Quercus awoke, he looked at himself 
 in surprise, and just like Mr. Van Winkle 
 when he discovered his long white beard, 
 asked: 
 
 '^What'sthisonme?" 
 
 It had broken right through his smooth coat 
 — a tiny root. Quercus lifted his head and 
 looked about, laughing so hard that he split 
 his sides more and more ; until his ragged coat 
 fell off and he stood like the little prince in 
 the fairy tale, straight and proud, with a green 
 cap on his head and a feather that grew 
 longer. 
 
 The little root busily burrowed through the 
 leafy mold; yet until he had a good firm grip 
 of the earth beneath, Quercus feared lest 
 
QUEECUS 5 
 
 weakness overtake him and he die, like many 
 of the tiny seedlings near, striving to be trees ; 
 but at last he got a firm grasp of the situa- 
 tion. 
 
 Then Quercus stretched with all his might, 
 like a lazy, growing boy — stretched himself 
 higher, and put on new raiment in keeping 
 with his larger size. When he got tired of 
 standing on one root, which was his taproot, 
 he sent out root branches underground, and 
 one day ran across someone in the dark. 
 
 ^^Helloa," he called, ^^who's there?" 
 
 ''A pine tree," was the answer. 
 
 **Dear me, if it isn't little Pinus!" ex- 
 claimed Quercus. ^^So you, too, have gained 
 ground. But this belongs to me." 
 
 *^A11 I ask is standing room," Pinus re- 
 plied. 
 
 *'And if I can get a bare subsistence from 
 the soil," said Quercus, ^^I shall be satisfied." 
 
 Quercus won his living not only from the 
 soil, but from the air as well. His root-tips 
 were covered with hairs, and at the end of 
 each hair was a thirsty little mouth, drinking 
 
6 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 water flavored with various nutritious brands 
 of minerals. Every leaf above was a green 
 tongue calling to the roots below for water; 
 and up it came, through the tiny cells; and 
 when the leaves and green bark received it, 
 they made a new mixture, like the busy little 
 chemists that they were. The method that they 
 followed had been handed down from genera- 
 tion to generation; so you see that the mixture 
 must be good — good for oak and ivy, with a 
 slight variation in the ingredients. Old trees 
 never fail to recommend it to little trees ; they 
 say, *^Look at me, see the benefit I have de- 
 rived therefrom. I am a living advertisement 
 of its nutritive qualities,'' adding that it is 
 pleasant to the taste. 
 
 But here is the method itself : Out of the air 
 is filtered the same kind of gas that makes bub- 
 bles in your soda-water. This gas the busy 
 chemists split up, returning some of the oxy- 
 gen to the air, but keeping all the carbon, or 
 the part of wood which makes charcoal. Then 
 they split up the water that the roots send up 
 to them, and mix in the carbon to make some- 
 
QUERCUS 7 
 
 thing else called starch, which, with the earth- 
 food brought up from the soil, forms their 
 staple article of diet. 
 
 Quercus followed the good old method, and 
 when he had nicely compounded the mixture 
 in his leaves, the sap carried it to every grow- 
 ing part, somewhat as hod-carriers take the 
 brick and mortar to the proper parts of a 
 growing building, and what was not needed 
 at once was stored away for future use. So 
 Quercus grew taller and stronger every day, 
 summer after summer, for the chemists work 
 only when they have light and warmth, and 
 night and winter are times of idleness. When 
 autumn came, his leaves ceased to be thirsty, 
 and the cell ducts, like a soda fountain, 
 awaited spring business. Then would come a 
 brisk demand on the roots for water, and the 
 new leaves and green bark would get busy. 
 
 Other young trees were eating and drink- 
 ing and stretching and growing. It is said that 
 one-half the world does not know how the other 
 half lives, and little the proud, uplifted 
 branches knew of the struggle going on under- 
 
8 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 ground. The branches soared while the roots 
 delved and pushed against one another, like 
 children kicking each other under the table, 
 and every year some trees lost courage and 
 foothold and gave up the fight, for to the 
 strongest was the victory. 
 
 Still, the branches had their own troubles. 
 Smarter trees overshadowed slower ones, and 
 sometimes it was too dark in the forest for 
 little trees to see their way up, and they, too, 
 stumbled and fell in the struggle. Even Quer- 
 cus could not well see how to mix his food, and 
 grew weak in the heavy shade. Must he also 
 give up at last, as he had seen so many do — 
 never rise and interlace his branches in the 
 canopy of crowns far above, and receive the 
 blessing of the sunlight on his head? Must 
 he wither and die and fall, leaving no record 
 of strength and courage and achievement ? He 
 tried to take his food and grow, faltered, saw 
 his fate before him — to enrich the mold for 
 those stronger in the struggle. It was this, 
 or a century of life — ^perhaps centuries of 
 kingly power. 
 
QUERCUS 9 
 
 A storm swept over the forest, and veterans 
 brought destruction in their fall. Yet out of 
 calamity came blessing. Quercus bowed his 
 head, but lifted it to light and victory. 
 
 The sun looked through the broken clouds 
 and broken ranks of trees, upon Quercus and 
 Pinus, and asked what were they thinking 
 about? Why weren't they busy? They 
 blinked in the flood of light, hesitated, saw lit- 
 tle strangers at their feet surrender and fall 
 before the sudden onslaught of day; then they 
 took heart and began anew. 
 
 Oh, how Quercus stretched himself! There 
 was that glorious open space above, and he far 
 below, like one in the depth of a valley. 
 Athwart this valley was sapphire sky, atilt 
 for the golden draught of sunlight to pour in. 
 But what was outside this valley, beyond the 
 crowns of the veterans? Quercus longed to 
 know. He tried to stand on tiptoe; he 
 stretched his neck, yet could not see. Others 
 were trying to see, trying to reach that space 
 of blue. He strove to get there first, for the 
 laggards would miss the prize of sunlight on 
 
10 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 their heads. Some did not care — were con- 
 tent with the shadow, but Quercus was proud 
 and would not brook the shade. 
 
 Sometimes he bent before the wind, some- 
 times he bowed beneath the snow, yet steadily 
 Quercus grew. He had roots firm in the 
 ground, a fine, straight stem, and a crown of 
 leafy branches. He dressed like the other 
 young oaks in the forest. If he wore branches 
 lower than forest fashion demanded, they were 
 overshadowed and withered away. The fash- 
 ion of the open country was to wear branches 
 low, but Quercus was a social tree and must 
 follow the fashion of the forest ; so, not liking 
 ridicule, he kept his stem as smooth and trim 
 as he could and tried not to adopt the ways of 
 country trees that grow in the open. 
 
 Yet in spite of all this youthful vanity, 
 Quercus had a good, sound heart, though he 
 was a little sappy. 
 
 The heartwood of Quercus stood in the rela- 
 tion of a skeleton to him. It was hard and 
 strong, with closed-up cells, for the sap arose 
 through the softer tissue of the newer wood, 
 
QUERCUS OFFERED HIMSELF UP TO THE TEETH 
 OF THE SAW 
 
QUERCUS 11 
 
 called sap wood. Each spring's growth formed 
 a new ring of wood around the old, with thin 
 walls to the cells through which the water 
 could hurry up to the laboratory in the 
 leaves. In the summer the cells were stouter 
 walled and smaller mouthed, making a finer 
 honeycomb, or as you would crochet a pattern 
 closer — if you are a girl — only, of course, these 
 cells were much smaller than any stitch ever 
 taken with a crochet needle. Through these 
 rings ran the silvery pith rays, made up of 
 storage cells. 
 
 As Quercus grew stouter, the new rings of 
 wood became narrower. Between the last ring 
 of wood and the bark, a thin layer of cambium 
 covered him from top to toe, only this garment 
 did not shrink, as your union suit is apt to do ; 
 it constantly grew, forming new wood on the 
 inside and new bark on the outside. And thus 
 he grew very stout, and every year had to let 
 out his coat, which began to look quite seamy. 
 
 So Quercus became, in the course of time, a 
 fine, large tree. He had conquered many ene- 
 mies, not least among which were insects, 
 
12 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 small, but powerful. Fungus was ready to 
 attack, the mistletoe had sought to over- 
 come. Yet these had taught him the strength 
 of little things, the power of the weak when 
 persistence takes the place of might. It was 
 the yearly growth of tender buds and tiny 
 cells which had given him his powerful frame 
 and made him monarch of the forest. 
 
 Quercus had conquered the years — a cen- 
 tury of them; and not insects, nor fungus, nor 
 mistletoe — not sun, nor shade, nor wind, nor 
 snow — ^had marred his strength. Yet the time 
 came when, like Shadrach, Meshach, and 
 Abednego, he must pass through the fiery fur- 
 nace. 
 
 By day Quercus had rested in the silence of 
 the forest; by night he had listened to that 
 Voice which is like the sound of a mighty 
 ocean in a mammoth shell, when Life breathes 
 upon the forest and it becomes alive with my- 
 riad small beings, awake and musical. He 
 had listened to the wind passing over the wind- 
 harp of trees, with the soft touch of the zephyr 
 or the reckless crash of the storm, when boughs 
 
QUERCUS 13 
 
 broke like snapping strings. But one day 
 there came a sound which was not the rush of 
 the restless wind, though the wind was awake, 
 lashing the fiery steed that he drove till its red 
 mane streamed far over the forest and the 
 dust that marked its track clouded the sky as 
 smoke. 
 
 The wind drove the fire close upon Quercus, 
 who felt the thickness of his armor of bark 
 and yet was afraid— not for himself but for 
 the child-trees, for the nestling birds, for the 
 bright-eyed squirrels. He looked at Pinus, 
 slim and straight and tall and proud, but 
 Pinus said : 
 
 ''My armor is thin; to you at last will be the 
 victory!'^ 
 
 The wind caught the words. **The fight 
 shall be more fair," said he, tearing away the 
 wings of flame, and the maimed steed crept 
 along the ground, past Quercus, past Pinus, 
 stopped at the stream that flowed through the 
 forest, and quenched its burning thirst. But 
 about the feet of Quercus the red lips had 
 licked up the tender seedlings, leaving the 
 
14 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 ground black and dry ; and the red mane had 
 rubbed against Pinus and left a scar. 
 
 As in the soul of Man, where the weak spot 
 is, there evil enters, so disease came to Pinus 
 through his wound. He weakened with the 
 years, and failed to claim his birthright of two 
 centuries or more. 
 
 Once, years past, men had entered the for- 
 est with sharp saws and cut down and carried 
 off some of the largest trees. Quercus often 
 wondered whither these trees had gone, and 
 one day asked the wind. 
 
 **They went to the mill," replied the wind, 
 "to be sliced into boards and shipped into 
 towns.'' 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "The boards were made into things useful 
 to Man ; for Man wants a great many things, 
 without which he thinks he cannot be comfort- 
 able or happy." 
 
 "What does Man make out of our wood?" 
 asked Quercus. 
 
 "Ships that float on the water, bridges so 
 that he can walk over the water, carriages in 
 
QUERCUS 15 
 
 which to ride, houses in which to live, beds 
 and chairs to make him comfortable, fences 
 so that he can own a piece of earth and keep 
 his neighbor off." 
 
 Almost every day, as the wind went hurry- 
 ing by from over plains and cities and seas, 
 the trees asked him questions. Strollers in the 
 wood, listening, said, ^^Hear the wind talking 
 through the branches.'' 
 
 Only they did not really believe that the 
 wind was talking, though all the while he was 
 telling the trees what use Man made of their 
 wood. 
 
 '*I should like to be a house," said one, ^'a 
 beautiful, sweet home sheltering a family of 
 little children, even as now I shelter birds and 
 squirrels." 
 
 *^And I," said another tree, *^ should like to 
 be the table around which they gathered morn- 
 ing, noon, and night. Years afterward they 
 would remember me, around whom they had 
 so often met." 
 
 ''And I would be the chair in which the 
 grandfather sat," said a third — ''a good, gray 
 
16 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 grandfather, who had worked strenuously, and 
 whose last years I would make comfortable; 
 and when he was gone, they would look at me 
 and love me and leave me in the chosen 
 place/' 
 
 *^I should like to be a bridge," said a fourth, 
 ''and know the ceaseless tramp, tramp of pass- 
 ing feet. Many feet would touch me, and by 
 their tread I could tell why they touched me 
 as they did — whether joy or sorrow or busi- 
 ness or idle fancy took them over my prostrate 
 form. As the feet touched me, I should be 
 thinking, thinking, all day long, and even at 
 night there would be stories to tell.'' 
 
 *'I would be a church steeple, ever pointing 
 upward, even as here I have striven to come 
 closer to the mystery of the sky," said 
 Pinus with his failing breath, well knowing 
 that upon this earth his work Avas forever 
 done. 
 
 *'I would be the mast of a ship that rides 
 triumphant over the deep sea." said the son 
 of Pinus. 
 
 ''And I," said a young oak, "would be the 
 
QUERCUS 17 
 
 ties over which those iron monsters fly, fast as 
 the wind, bearing their freight of human 
 lives." 
 
 '*I would be a tall pole," said another, *^with 
 wires where now my branches are, and Man's 
 thoughts would fly over them faster than squir- 
 rels, faster than the flight of birds." 
 
 **Nay, I would be none of those things," said 
 a hickory. *^I would know the touch of the 
 keen axe until I was hewn into a thousand 
 pieces, and these pieces should be placed in the 
 grate about which the family gathered on a 
 winter night. Then the red flames would 
 clasp me and crown me, even as the green 
 leaves now bind my brow, and the fire would 
 leap through my veins, even as the sweet sap 
 now flows through them, until at last that 
 which had been given me by the earth, would 
 return to the earth as ashes, and that which 
 had been given me by the air, would be freed 
 from the bondage of my being and return to 
 the spirit of the air." 
 
 **And what would you be ?" asked the wind, 
 caressing the giant frame of Quercus, 
 
18 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 *^I would be the cradle of babyhood," re- 
 plied the king of the forest, while the laugh- 
 ter of the trees ran like squirrels over the 
 branches. Unheeding, he continued, **And as 
 I rocked the child, I would whisper tales of 
 the forest, till he smiled at my fancies and slept 
 his innocent sleep. I would tell him the stories 
 of acorns and ivy and birds. What the wind 
 has told me, I would tell him, till his fancies 
 were as flowers and the sunbeams of happy 
 thoughts touched him with their radiance. 
 And all the while I would be giving him the 
 strength which is the strength of a great tree, 
 the patience which is found in the growth of 
 a century, the endurance which comes from 
 a struggle for life from infancy. 
 
 ^* What I have attained, he should attain, my 
 strength should be his strength ; and he at last 
 would be crowned with victory in the struggle 
 of life, even as I am crowned with branches 
 and leaves. And while he stood firm on the 
 foundation of world-wisdom, upon his head 
 would rest the eternal sunlight of a Higher 
 Truth — the consciousness of Life Divine, 
 
QUERCUS 19 
 
 Night after night I would hold him in my arms 
 and teach him these things.'' 
 
 They were silent as the monarch paused. 
 
 *^May your wishes come true, dear chil- 
 dren of the forest!" whispered the wind, 
 touching them lightly at parting. 
 
 Quercus thoughtfully sheltered the birds, 
 gave food to the squirrels, offered a staff to 
 the struggling ivy, and a home to myriad small 
 creatures. 
 
 '^Should Man never need me, is this all there 
 is for me to do?" he asked the wind one day. 
 
 *'Look high over the other trees," replied 
 the wind; ^^see the streams winding through 
 the land, with water for stock and city, mill 
 and ship. How finely the green hills slope to 
 the valley, fruitful and populous! You and 
 your brothers and sisters are the bulwark of 
 safety about this smiling land. Your roots 
 bind the soil upon the hillside, and under the 
 forest floor is a hidden well of rain, from which 
 the springs forever fill their overflowing ves- 
 sels. So the good streams bless you for life, 
 and Man blesses you for his prosperity." 
 
20 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Quercus saw the browsing cattle, the fields 
 of shining grain, the bending orchard boughs, 
 and said, '*I would remain here to the end of 
 my days." 
 
 ^'Look,'' said the wind, inclining the oak's 
 head. 
 
 And Quercus saw the young trees struggling 
 for life. 
 
 ' ' In time you must die, ' ' said the wind. ' ' If 
 then your children are dead, who will take 
 your place in the forest?" 
 
 Quercus was silent. 
 
 The following day men came with sharp 
 saws, as strong as the teeth of the storm. Quer- 
 cus, looking down at Alba, his offspring, be- 
 ginning to falter in the mighty and everlasting 
 struggle for existence, said, *' ^A life for a 
 life,' " and offered himself up to the teeth of 
 the saw. 
 
 And when he, the monarch, had fallen, and 
 they had stripped the crown from his head 
 and borne him away, the forest became silent ; 
 the birds gazed questioningly at the vacant 
 throne, the squirrels glanced timorously at the 
 
QUERCUS 21 
 
 great rent in the leafy forest roof; while the 
 wind, passing his hand over the harp of the 
 trees, and seeking in vain the strong, deep 
 note that had rung so long in the forest har- 
 mony, swept the strings tenderly, and was 
 still. 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 
 
 T is time for the maples to wake up," 
 said Nokomis, the earth-mother. 
 
 They were still drowsy atop, though 
 down in the ground the sleepless root- 
 lets, thinking the snow all gone, were wide 
 awake and very thirsty. So the trees drew up 
 soil-water through their cells, and the sugar 
 stored away last year in the form of starch, 
 now sweetened the flowing sap ready for the 
 first spring food of the awakening buds. 
 
 ^^The sap stirs," said Farmer Brier, ^^and 
 it's time to sugar off." 
 
 Many, many years ago — so the Indians tell 
 — Nokomis, the earth-mother, made maple 
 sugar. One day she cut small holes in the 
 trees, put a little piece of wood into each hole, 
 and placed a vessel under it. Then her grand- 
 son, the hero Manabush, looking into the ves- 
 
 25 
 
26 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 sels, found them suddenly half -full of thick 
 sirup. He put his finger into the sirup, then 
 popped it into his mouth, and found it 
 sweet. 
 
 ''Mj grandmother," he said, ^Hhis is all very 
 good, yet it will not do to have the trees give 
 sirup in this way. The people will not have 
 any work to do if they make sugar so easily ; 
 they must cut wood and boil the sirup several 
 nights, to keep them busy, that they may not 
 form bad habits. I will change all this." 
 
 Then Manabush climbed to the very top of 
 a maple tree and threw water all over it like 
 rain, to dissolve the sugar and let it flow from 
 the tree in the form of sap. 
 
 So Farmer Brier had Manabush to thank 
 when he cut much wood in his grove, ready to 
 sugar off. 
 
 He now brought an auger and bored a hole in 
 a maple tree, and when he had driven in a 
 sumach spout and hung a pail for the dripping 
 sap, he bored a hole on the other side of the 
 tree, drove in another spout, and hung another 
 pail. So he went from tree to tree. 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 27 
 
 Two children followed their father into the 
 wood. ' ' Sister, the sap is running I ' ' cried the 
 boy. 
 
 ''Brother, I cannot see," sighed the little 
 girl, tiptoeing. 
 
 As Brother lifted her to let her look into 
 the pail, he heard a sound— not the wind, or 
 the welcoming frogs, or the returning robins — 
 no, it breathed from the very heart of the tree, 
 a sigh, as when one awakens. A tremor passed 
 over the branches, which was not from the 
 south wind's caress, and a sweet spirit in the 
 maple tree awoke to life. 
 
 ''Let us follow Father," said the boy, "and 
 see him tap the trees." 
 
 Then the spirit in the maple tree smiled 
 and tried to reach out to him; but, alas! like 
 the sunshine, she had no hands, so she watched 
 the children follow their father through the 
 wood, longing to be a child with them and 
 pondering how her wish might be realized. 
 
 "I will ask Old Nokomis, the earth-mother," 
 she said to herself that night. 
 
 The snow was falling, clothing the trees once 
 
28 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 more in their winter white, and Old Nokomis, 
 the earth-mother, wore ermine on her blanket 
 as her moccasins fell softly on the carpet of 
 eiderdown, leaving no mark — though the rab- 
 bits left their fanlike footprints and the squir- 
 rels their tiny tracks. 
 
 ^^Nokomis," cried a voice from the maple 
 tree, *'when in mid-March the father comes 
 tapping the trees, the children follow. Give 
 me hands to touch and feet to run, eyes to see 
 and lips to laugh, and loose me from the bonds 
 of the maple tree — for the children are sweet, 
 sweeter than the maple sap I" 
 
 Old Nokomis, gazing at the tree's shaggy 
 bark, long past the smoothness of youth, re- 
 plied, ** Daughter, you are a child in spirit, 
 though your maple tree has grown old. Yet, 
 old as is your maple tree, only I remember the 
 days before the Pale Face brought his snow- 
 white sugar and his golden honeybee ; only I 
 remember how the Red Man slanted his cut in 
 the maple's side, gathered the sweet water in 
 vessels of bark or clay, and dropped in the 
 heated stones. The tribes had a festival or 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 29 
 
 a Maple Dance, for the maple sweet was their 
 April food and they welcomed the Sugar 
 Moon. 
 
 ^^Then by-and-by fair-faced children came 
 begging for the sweet taste as their fathers 
 tapped the trees in the old Indian way, caught 
 the sap in wooden troughs, and boiled it over 
 a fire in metal pots." 
 
 **But tell me, I pray, more about the chil- 
 dren.'' 
 
 *' Daughter, you are impatient," said Old 
 Nokomis, the earth-mother. *^You long to 
 steal forth with the flowing sap and be a child 
 at the sugar-making." 
 
 **Yes, that is my wish. And I would re- 
 main as other children, and live in their home 
 and grow and work and play with them and 
 be always one in their midst." 
 
 **So shall it be," said Nokomis, ** unless the 
 spell be broken." 
 
 **What spell must not be broken'?" 
 
 *^Love, like sunlight, will draw you forth; 
 but discord, like the frost, will drive you back. 
 Will you go?" 
 
30 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 ^'I will go." 
 
 * * When I call, you must come ; for only while 
 the sweet water freely flows will you have eyes 
 and ears, to look and listen, and hands and 
 feet, to touch and run as children do. But 
 when the buds awake and the leaves unfold, I 
 will call no more." 
 
 Then Old Nokomis and the night shadows 
 and the veil of snow were gone. The pale 
 flower of dawn bloomed in the sky, and all 
 was white and pure like the heart of a little 
 child. 
 
 When Farmer Brier drove with his sledge to 
 the wood, he had a barrel for the sap from 
 the scattered maples on the hillside. **What a 
 good run of sap," thought he, emptying a pail 
 into the carrying-bucket; **I guess there's 
 enough to boil." 
 
 He shoveled the snow from the two big back 
 logs, over which he hung a caldron and a ket- 
 tle, each balanced on the end of a long pole 
 set across a post. The heavy pole was 
 weighted with stones at the other end, to turn 
 the caldron on or off the fire. Then he tore 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 31 
 
 bark from a birch tree and struck a match. 
 
 Ready to gather the sap of near-by trees, the 
 two children came racing through the snow. 
 
 ^'Lemme taste the sugar water," begged the 
 little girl, all eager. 
 
 So the boy lifted a shining pail to her rosy 
 lips— when a little maiden slipped from the 
 tree in a most surprising way, like a sunbeam 
 sliding to the ground and taking form. He 
 started, and almost dropped the pail. 
 
 ''Helloal" he cried. ''Who are you, any- 
 way?" 
 
 ''Nani," replied the stranger. 
 
 "Nani what?" he asked. 
 
 "Only Nani," she answered wonderingly. 
 
 *'How funny," he said; ''why, our names 
 are Dick and Dotty May Brier." 
 
 "Then I am Nani Niset— sugar maple girl/^ 
 she laughed, and so the three made friends. 
 
 " 'Tis a neighbor-child," thought Farmer 
 Brier, as Nani joined the children at their 
 task. 
 
 As the sap boiled, Farmer Brier dipped it 
 from the caldron into the kettle, and threw 
 
32 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 in cold milk to keep it from bubbling over. 
 Dick drove Dotty May home on the sledge, 
 but Nani remained in the sugar bush to help 
 dip the thin sirup into a barrel. Suddenly she 
 paused; the sun had set, and there was frost 
 in the air. 
 
 **I hear the earth-mother calling," said she, 
 **and I must go." 
 
 '^That's a good girl, mind your ma," replied 
 Farmer Brier, looking around. 
 
 But Nani was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 When Dick returned, he questioned his 
 father about her. 
 
 **She went mighty sudden," said Farmer 
 Brier, simply, ^*but I guess it's all right." 
 
 The next day, Uncle Isaac, long and lean, 
 came to help in the sugar bush. 
 
 ^* Where do you live at, anyhow?" he asked 
 as Nani joined them in the maple grove. 
 
 *'I live in the sugar bush!" laughed she. 
 
 **Hev your folks made maple sugar long?" 
 he questioned her further. 
 
 ^^Nokomis, the earth-mother, made maple 
 sugar before the White Man came. 
 
 >> 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 33 
 
 *'She must be a very old lady," observed 
 Uncle Isaac. 
 
 *'Yes, she is old" — and Nani laughed again 
 — "she is old, as old as the earth I" 
 
 ** That's six thousand years," said Uncle 
 Isaac, who was very orthodox. "She can't be 
 that old. Even Methusely was only nine hun- 
 dred years old. Do you know the Ten Com- 
 mandments?" 
 
 "I know but one commandment," answered 
 Nani. 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Love," she replied, and ran to bring more 
 wood for the fire. 
 
 At sunset Nani slipped away among the 
 shadows, and none saw her go. 
 
 She did not return on the morrow. It was 
 too cold for the sap to run, and Farmer Brier 
 washed the pots and pails and waited for 
 spring weather. 
 
 Dotty May had followed her father into the 
 sugar bush, but was not to be seen when he 
 started for home. There was no reply to his 
 loud "Helloa!" so, thinking she had gone 
 
34 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 home, he went whistling through the wood. 
 
 Dotty May had come to the maple grove, not 
 for the sake of the sugar water, but to seek her 
 playmate Nani. She went far into the wood 
 in her quest, but no Nani answered her call, 
 and now night shades were falling and the 
 frost was pinching her little nose. She sat 
 down on a stump and began to cry. 
 
 *^The little one cries for me,'' thought Nani; 
 ^* could love give me a form, I would go 
 to her." And her feet bore her swiftly to 
 Dotty May. 
 
 *^Nani, my Nani I" cried Dotty May. 
 
 **I have come, dear, for just a little while," 
 said Nani. **Come, take my hand, and I will 
 lead you home." 
 
 Smothering her sobs. Dotty May put her 
 trusting hand into Nani's and trudged beside 
 her through the shadowy woods. 
 
 ** Hurry, little one," urged Nani, as they 
 neared the maple grove. 
 
 They were now on the hillside, in sight of 
 home. 
 
 '^Good-bye, Dotty May," she said, loosening 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 35 
 
 the clinging hand. **The earth-mother is call- 
 ing me, so run home as fast as you can." 
 
 And before Dotty May could answer, Nani 
 was gone — but where ? 
 
 Sunny days followed!, with frosty nights, 
 so the days were busy ones for the workers 
 in the sugar bush. Every morning Nani was 
 there to lend a willing hand, but every night 
 she slipped away and none knew where she 
 went — ^it was like the passing of the sunbeams 
 when the sun calls, and they obey his summons 
 promptly like good children. And so Nani 
 came and went with the sunbeams and seemed 
 one with them. 
 
 One morning Aunt Miranda came to help 
 boil down the sirup. Aunt Miranda looked as 
 if she had been cut out of cardboard with a 
 pair of sharp scissors. 
 
 *^So this is the children's friend,'' she said, 
 looking through her spectacles at Nani. 
 ^^What is your name, did you say ?" 
 
 **Nani," was the reply. 
 
 ''Well, Nanny," said Aunt Miranda, ''I 
 guess you must hev been raised in the sugar 
 
36 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 bush, you air so handy at the siruping-down. 
 I like useful children. Has your ma got many 
 like you?'' 
 
 **So many," cried Nani, 'Hhat she is going 
 to let me come and stay with you I'' 
 
 And she laughed as she ran to gather more 
 sap, for the maples gave her plentifully of 
 their store. Aunt Miranda's spectacles were 
 very clear, and she saw that the trees 
 responded to Nani's touch as if Nani were the 
 very sunshine. 
 
 *^She certainly is a likely child,'' she said 
 briskly to Uncle Isaac and Farmer Brier, 
 *^and it would really pay to give her a home. 
 Her folks most likely want to bind her 
 out." 
 
 The thin sirup that had been saved from 
 time to time was now put over the fire. When 
 it was warm. Aunt Miranda stirred in beaten 
 eggs to clarify it, and before it boiled. Uncle 
 Isaac skimmed off the dark scum that rose to 
 the surface, leaving the clear, honey-colored 
 sirup to boil and thicken until ready to strain 
 into the bright new cans. 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 37 
 
 Toward evening Dick and Dotty May went 
 after the cows, and Uncle Isaac followed to 
 do the milking. 
 
 ** Nanny, do you believe your ma would miind 
 if you come home with me*?'' asked Aunt Mi- 
 randa. *^ Couldn't you run home and ask 
 her?" 
 
 The evening had turned warm ; so Nani an- 
 swered, ^^I may stay with you when the night 
 is so mild that the sap will run.'' 
 
 ''Some folks don't approve of their children 
 staying with a neighbor overnight," remarked 
 Aunt Miranda, ''but I gues your ma knows 
 who the Briers air." 
 
 They had reached the opening of the woods, 
 and on the hillside below nestled the white 
 farmhouse. Unasked, Nani's hand sought 
 Aunt Miranda's, and she skipped gaily along 
 beside her. 
 
 But Aunt Miranda glanced sideways at 
 her through her spectacles. "Don't waste 
 your strength that way I" she said sharply. 
 "There's lots to be done in this work-a-day 
 world — dishwashing, dusting, and sich like — 
 
38 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 and one can't afford to prance jest for noth- 
 ing 1'' 
 
 Nani snatched her hand away, her radiance 
 quite fading as she cried, ^^O Aunt Mi- 
 randa, I can't go with you — ^just yet! I'm 
 afraid " 
 
 *^ Afraid of what?" demanded Aunt Mi- 
 randa. 
 
 ** Afraid, Aunt Miranda, that you might 
 break the spell!" and Nani laughed gaily, flit- 
 ting away through the darkening wood. 
 
 So rapidly was the sap dripping that 
 Farmer Brier prepared to continue the boil- 
 ing all night. 
 
 The light of the campfire played over the 
 gray columns of the trees and awoke the rest- 
 less shadows under them. It danced in a cir- 
 cle, like an elfin ring, and a little bright figure 
 skipped in and out among the shadows, with 
 the firelight for a partner. Yet Farmer Brier 
 did not notice ; in fact, he was so busy that he 
 had no time for dreams or dancing shadows 
 or firelight frisking with an elf, for he was a 
 simple, practical man, and when the moon 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 39 
 
 looked curiously down through the bare 
 branches to see what he was about at midnight 
 in the sugar bush, she found him intent upon 
 his task. 
 
 But Farmer Brier grew very tired, so tired 
 that sleepiness crept over him, a drowsiness 
 not to be thrown off. And so the ladle moved 
 slower and slower ; he sank down on a log and 
 leaned against a tree, yielding to the enchant- 
 ment of moon and firelight and the music of 
 the dripping sap. 
 
 Drip, drip fell the sap into the pails, with 
 different notes, some loud, some low, some 
 quick, some slow, some near, some far away. 
 Higher danced the flames, as if to look farther 
 into the dark mystery of the wood; sputter, 
 sputter, came from the boiling caldron; but 
 Farmer Brier slept. 
 
 And now the little dancing figure with the 
 firelight for a partner, glided from among the 
 shadows and stole softly up to Farmer Brier, 
 taking the ladle from his tired hand. 
 
 The dawn awoke him. Dazed, he looked 
 around. Yes, he had slept at his post. The 
 
40 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 fire had burned out, and an empty caldron 
 hung over the ashes; but near by, in a puz- 
 zling row, stood shining cans of golden sirup. 
 
 ''Done from start to finish I" he exclaimed. 
 
 Farmer Brier could not account for this, yet 
 did not deny what he could not explain. He 
 simply accepted facts, and went home to his 
 breakfast. 
 
 A rainy day came into the midst of the sir- 
 up-making, when only Farmer Brier and 
 Uncle Isaac worked in the sugar bush, but in 
 the afternoon they covered up caldron and ket- 
 tle and left the grove to the beating rain. 
 
 Nani, hidden all the morning in a hollow 
 tree, now strolled lonesomely through the 
 maple grove. Sometimes she peeped through 
 the trees on the edge of the wood at the snug 
 farmhouse nestled under the hill, and by- 
 and-by she sat down on a sheltered log to watch 
 Dick and Dotty May romping on the porch. 
 She could see Farmer Brier and Uncle Isaac 
 at work, and hear Aunt Miranda call to the 
 hungry fowls. Another figure, too, she saw 
 through the veil of rain, a comfortable, moth- 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 41 
 
 erly form moving in and out, bent on house- 
 hold tasks. 
 
 Evening drew near. Nani saw the mother, 
 with cloak and umbrella and basket, go down 
 the road; but she took a short cut home 
 through the maple wood, and so came upon 
 Nani sitting under the tree, watching for her 
 return along the road. 
 
 '^Dear child," she said, '*why are you sit- 
 ting out in the rain ? Only little ducklings like 
 so much wet." She sat down on the log and 
 drew Nani close under the big umbrella. 
 
 * * I do not mind the rain, ' ' replied Nani. * * It 
 makes the plants grow, and so perhaps it will 
 be good for me." 
 
 **Are you far from home?" the mother 
 asked. 
 
 **I live in the wood," answered Nani. 
 
 '*Come, I will take you home under my um- 
 brella," said Mrs. Brier. 
 
 Nani crept closer. * ' This is my home — right 
 here." 
 
 The mother looked down at the strange child, 
 of whom she had heard so much yet never seen 
 
42 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 before. **Tell me all about yourself, dear 
 child. Where is your home ? Have you broth- 
 ers and sisters?" 
 
 *^0h, many, many!" Nani cried. 
 
 **Ah, yes," said Mrs. Brier thoughtfully, 
 glancing at Nani's odd dress; **I see, you live 
 in an institution." 
 
 Nani laughed merrily. **Tes, I am the in- 
 mate of an institution," she replied. ^^But 
 when the maple buds awake, I may come and 
 live with you, if " 
 
 ''If what, child?" 
 
 *'If the charm be not broken," said Nani. 
 
 When the mother j&rst put her arm, like a 
 warm cloak, around the child, she felt as if she 
 were holding a shadow — or a sunbeam, rather; 
 but the longer they sat thus together, the 
 firmer she seemed to hold Nani, into whose 
 cheek a flush dawned and into whose clear eyes 
 a look came which made her seem more real; 
 and the mother-eyes, looking down into the 
 bright face, half caught the mystery that she 
 could not understand yet which her heart 
 seemed to know. 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 43 
 
 *'It is well," said she. *' There is a sunny 
 room for you and Dotty May, and you, my 
 child, will take the place of one who left me 
 years ago — ^you will take her place and abide 
 with me and be my own, to live not only in 
 our home but in our hearts. 
 
 **And now," she added, *'come home with 
 me, out of the rain, for it is growing colder, 
 and there will be a frost to-night." 
 
 *'Ah, if there is a frost," sighed Nani, draw- 
 ing back, ''I may not go." 
 
 ^*Then good-bye, little one, for I must leave 
 you." And the mother stooped and kissed 
 her. 
 
 Nani sat down again upon the log, and 
 looked long at the farmhouse as it melted into 
 the evening shade. By-and-by a light spark- 
 led from a window, then another; still Nani 
 sat on the log, gazing wistfully at the happy 
 home. The rain turned to snow, yet she no- 
 ticed not; but at Old Nokomis' call she started 
 up, with a longing backward glance at the old 
 farmhouse now gone to sleep under the hill. 
 
 The sun, smiling through the bare branches, 
 
44 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 found an ermine carpet spread in the maple 
 grove. He awoke the trees from their night 
 napping, and soon the sap dripped gaily into 
 the waiting pails. 
 
 To-day was the first sugaring-off, and the 
 white carpet was soon tracked over by busy 
 feet. After the thin sirup had been boiled and 
 stirred for hours, Farmer Brier looped a twig, 
 dipped it quickly into the kettle, and blew 
 through the film spread over the loop. 
 
 ''It feathers," said he, ''and the sugar is 
 done." 
 
 The thick, amber liquid was now taken from 
 the fire and poured into molds to granulate 
 into golden bricks of sugar. There were two 
 saucers in which to mold sugar cakes for Nani 
 and Dotty May, but Dick had brought empty 
 egg-shells to be filled. 
 
 "They are for next Christmas," he ex- 
 plained — "one for each cousin in the city; but 
 the big one is for Nani Niset." 
 
 "Christmas is a long ways off," drawled 
 Uncle Isaac. 
 
 "Oh, but I love to think of it now, 'specially 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 45 
 
 with snow on the ground," cried Dick. **Be- 
 sides, if we thought of our friends only at 
 Christmas time, how lonesome the rest of the 
 year would be!" 
 
 Dotty May, hovering over the nest of maple 
 sugar eggs, picked up the large one, thinking 
 of the game, '^ Heavy, heavy hangs over your 
 head!" Just one little nibble, then an- 
 other 
 
 ''How could you. Dotty May!" cried Dick, 
 stamping his foot in the snow. 
 
 His eyes flashed, his cheeks were brighter 
 than the flames. 
 
 ''She is so little," Nani pleaded, her arms 
 around the small offender; "she did not mean 
 to make you angry, Dick." 
 
 Then he turned upon Nani, and his words 
 rushed out like angry bees. What he said, he 
 did not know, nor could he ever quite recall ; 
 but he saw her protecting arms release their 
 hold, she drooped and faded like a flower that 
 dies. 
 
 "Oh, where is Nanil" wailed Dotty May. 
 
 But only a withered leaf Twirled by. 
 
46 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Uncle Isaac, too, saw Nani vanisK, yet He 
 would not believe his own eyes because he 
 could not explain what he saw. And when 
 Dick sobbed out how Nani had disappeared, 
 Aimt Miranda said decidedly: 
 
 ** Reuben Brier, you let them children read 
 too many fairy tales!'' 
 
 But Nani was gone. It was useless to look 
 behind trees or poke bare bushes. Yet to com- 
 fort Dick, his father said that he might go to 
 the sugar camp a few miles away, to see if 
 Nani could be there. 
 
 **She must be a sugar-maker's little lass," 
 said Farmer Brier, '^she was so handy at the 
 sugaring-off." 
 
 So the next day Dick set out to visit the 
 sugar camp near by; and if he had not been 
 so intent upon finding Nani, he would have 
 noticed how here the sap dripped through 
 metal spouts into covered pails. He entered 
 the shelter-building, in which the sap, 
 flowing through a pipe from the storage 
 tank, was boiled over a firebox in a partitioned 
 pan. 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 47 
 
 '*Have you seen a little girl by the name of 
 Nani here?" he asked of the man who was 
 tending the sirup, so like in color to Nani's 
 eyes and hair. 
 
 ''There was a little gal here yesterday— a 
 dark, sulky child," replied the man. 
 
 ''That wasn't Nani, then," said Dick, "for 
 Nani was sunny and looked like pretty maple 
 sugar." 
 
 He would have continued his search to the 
 big sugar-house still farther on, but vaguely 
 realized that he would never find Nani among 
 modern evaporators — ^no, he must look else- 
 where. And so he returned alone. 
 
 The Sugar Moon was waning, and the dark- 
 ening sap loosing its sweetness and flavor, so 
 the holes were plugged with green wood, and 
 the maple grove given over to the buds and the 
 birds. 
 
 It seemed very lonesome to Dick and Dotty 
 May as they trudged through it one day, bound 
 to find Nani if Nani were to be found. Leav- 
 ing familiar haunts, they wandered far 
 through the forest, and finally came to a wig- 
 
48 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 warn, by the door of which sat a very old In- 
 dian woman. 
 
 *'Can you tell me," inquired Dick, '^ where 
 a little girl named Nani lives ? We have come 
 very far to find her." 
 
 The old Indian woman smiled. 
 
 *'I was angry," he added frankly, ^^and she 
 went away." 
 
 ^^Yes, I know," replied the Indian woman. 
 
 ^^Will she never come back?" he asked. ^^I 
 did wrong, but want to make it right. Tell me 
 where I can find her." 
 
 The old woman's face, like unto creased cop- 
 per, softened at his words. Dotty May had 
 ceased her crying, and was pulling at the In- 
 dian's blanket; for she was not afraid of her 
 now, so fast did her face soften and the strange 
 wrinkles disappear. 
 
 '* There is but one way to find Nani," an- 
 swered the Indian woman. 
 
 **Tell me," cried Dick — ^*no way is too 
 hardl" 
 
 '*The earth draws its life from the sun," 
 she said, ^^but Nani drew her life from 
 
THE SUGAR MOON 49 
 
 love. Your harsh words cut the golden cord. 
 Yet you wish to undo what you have done." 
 
 **Yes,'' sighed Dick, with drooping head, 
 **so tell me the way back.'' 
 
 ^* *The way back I' " she repeated. *^ People 
 always fancy there is a way back when their 
 error leads them into sorrow. But this time," 
 she added gently, ^Hhere is a way straight 
 ahead." 
 
 He looked up eagerly. 
 
 ** Listen," said she: *Svhen you have 
 thought ten thousand kind thoughts, when you 
 have said ten thousand kind words, when you 
 have done ten thousand kind deeds, kindness 
 will be a habit, and " 
 
 "Yes, tell me," he cried, "shall I find Nani 
 then?" 
 
 "Yes, you will find Nani, brighter, more 
 beautiful than before!" And her face shone 
 radiant and tender as she bent upon the two 
 children a smile like the return of spring. 
 
 Then the Indian woman and the wigwam 
 were gone, and around them remained only the 
 trees and underbrush and springing ferns. 
 
50 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Dick took the hand of Dotty May and led 
 her thoughtfully through the forest. They 
 reached at last the maple grove, grown lovely 
 now with bursting buds. Some trees, most im- 
 patient for May, wore a hint of tan-tinted 
 leaves and a fringe of fairy bells. Dick gazed 
 up at the shining treetops against the azure 
 sky; the sunlight on them was like the 
 shimmer of Nani's hair — no, it was more like 
 Nani's smile. His face brightened; he did not 
 really know, he could not say for sure, yet he 
 was almost certain that Nani was with them 
 in the maple wood. He smiled as he clasped 
 tighter the dimpled hand of Dotty May: for 
 did not love lead him nearer to his desire? 
 And he knew that at the end of a sunbeam 
 path, Nani would wait for him. 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 
 
 fi 
 
 HALL flowers come first, or leaves? 
 The red maple said flowers; the lo- 
 cust, leaves ; while the beech suggested 
 both. 
 
 The trees reviewed their wardrobes 
 of velvet or varnished buds, where spring 
 clothes had been packed away ever since 
 last year, ready for the time when they wake 
 from their winter sleep and have to get dressed 
 in a hurry. None but a magician or Mother 
 Nature could ever shake a flower-robe or leaf- 
 frock from such tiny bundles, though mate- 
 rial is tucked away in cell cubby-holes to help 
 out in the springtime dress. 
 
 While the trees were whispering together, 
 three girls met out of doors. 
 
 ^^See the red buds beading the silver maple," 
 said Portia, the gray-eyed girl. '^Soon all the 
 
 53 
 
54 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 trees will awake at the sunrise of spring, and 
 you will find flowers blooming where you had 
 not thought there were flowers — ^high up on 
 forest trees. We love sweet arbutus and vio- 
 lets so well that they seem all of spring; we 
 forget that the alder is one of the first to hang 
 out the flag of fair weather, and when we think 
 the elm bursting into leaf, we do not know that 
 she is adorned with little bells or seed with sil- 
 ver fringe. Many flower-banners will float in 
 the bright air of Easter, as if the victorious 
 trees heard the words, *I am the Resurrection 
 and the Life I'" 
 
 ** Easter!" echoed Pearl. **I am so glad it 
 is coming, for then I can wear my pink and 
 white dress." 
 
 ''I shall have a tan-colored suit," said Por- 
 tia. 
 
 But Polly said nothing, looking down at her 
 plain little frock. 
 
 "What does * Easter' mean?" she asked 
 presently, lifting her wistful eyes to Portia's 
 face. 
 /*0h, * Easter' means that it is time to put 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 55 
 
 off old winter clothes and wear something new 
 and pretty I" cried Pearl, smoothing out her 
 dainty skirt. *'It comes in the spring, just 
 the right time." 
 
 '^When Easter comes," replied Portia, '*I 
 will tell you its true meaning." 
 
 And then they parted, Portia and Pearl re- 
 turning to the big house on the hill, while lit- 
 tle Polly took the path through the wood and 
 over the field to her humble home. 
 
 When the girls had left the lawn, the sil- 
 ver maple said, *^Did you hear them say 
 what they would wear on Easter? One said 
 that it was the day to put on new spring 
 clothes." 
 
 "Then we, too, must prepare for Easter," 
 replied the little dogwood. *^Our fashion of 
 flowers is much prettier than theirs, and per- 
 haps I shall look as fair as the girl with the 
 apple-blossom face. ' ' 
 
 '^That reminds me," said the beech, "that 
 the orchard trees will put on their pink and 
 white frocks before long. Who then will think 
 to look at us 1" 
 
56 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 *^The robin will,'' answered the elm. 
 
 **And the bee," echoed the linden. 
 
 *^Let us get ready for Easter," said the Nor- 
 way maple, *^and the robin will tell which one 
 has done the best. Of course, we cannot com- 
 pete with the orchard trees; they have their 
 fashions, and we have ours." 
 
 '^However," said the elm thoughtfully, *^it 
 is the one beautiful, sweet fashion of flow- 
 ers." 
 
 '* Flowers, flowers, flowers I" echoed every 
 tree. **What shall I wear — flowers with sta- 
 mens, flowers with pistils, or flowers with sta- 
 mens and pistils both?" 
 
 For stamens carry the pollen-powder atop, 
 while pistils bear seed at their base, and some- 
 times one tree will wear only gold powder, the 
 other pendants of seed. 
 
 Down by the stream the willows were bud- 
 ding. 
 
 **I intend to wear my furs on Easter," de- 
 clared the pussy willow. * ' Easters are so often 
 cold, and I have such pretty gray furs." 
 
 So he started spring fashions with bursting 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 57 
 
 bud of red-brown scales, and soon was snug in 
 silvery fur. 
 
 **You look very nice," commented the white 
 birch, * though I fear you were in too much of 
 a hurry ; your furs are changing color, and will 
 be a bit shabby by Easter.'' 
 
 For yellow stamens were pricking out 
 through the down like so many bright pins, 
 and when the bees had carried their gold-dust 
 to the green pistils of the willow across the 
 brook, the silky fur looked decidedly moth- 
 eaten. 
 
 **Ah, well," sighed the pussy willow, ^^I 
 have started things, anyway." 
 
 His neighbor, the alder, flung out her long 
 jeweled tassels of russet and old-gold. 
 
 *^I shall save my flowers for the golden 
 days," said the tulip-tree. 
 
 *^Not I," replied the alder, tipping her 
 branches with tiny cones ; and she fluttered her 
 flag over the brook, scattering her jewels to 
 the wind. 
 
 Meanwhile, the silver maple eagerly opened 
 her garnet buds. Some branches she feathered 
 
58 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 with stamens, greenish-yellow, with tips of 
 red ; others were crimson with pistils. 
 
 *' 'Tis airy attire," remarked the pussy wil- 
 low, *^for so early in the year.'' 
 
 **0h, but I am a bit of the springtime 1" 
 How fair she looked through her veil of flow- 
 ers. **We don't want winter fashions now, 
 with comfy furs." 
 
 '*So, so!" suddenly sang the snow, and be- 
 fore she knew it, she was muffled in white from 
 top to root. 
 
 ** Cheer up!" called the red maple gaily, 
 flaming into crimson and coral flowers. **My 
 heart is on fire with spring ! Let us be glad, 
 glad, glad!" 
 
 **Are we not glad!" And the elm, flushing 
 with joy, burst into a million little bells with 
 ruby clappers. A beautiful tune drifted 
 down, like the sunrise anthem of the year. The 
 laggard trees heard it, and began to stir. 
 
 But the white poplar was already awake. 
 
 **For real comfort on a cool spring day," 
 he said pompously, **look at me." 
 
 For while his mate was uncurling her green 
 
THE WHITE POPLAR WAS ALREADY AWAKE 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 59 
 
 catkins, he had clothed himself in chenille tas- 
 sels — each a string of tiny brown fans with 
 pointed edges and silver fringes, with rosy 
 clusters between — and hid his pale bark under 
 a mantle of ashes-of-roses. However, the 
 wind, shaking the pollen from the bright sta- 
 mens, cried, ^' 'Pride must have a fall!' " and 
 tore the tassels to tatters; so the poplars put 
 on leaves lined with white flannel, which later 
 turned to a silver lining. 
 
 Their cousin, the cottonwood, bore a tas- 
 seled banner of russet-red ; though the vandal 
 wind waved the bright banner too well, and all 
 too soon Captain Cottonwood mourned his col- 
 ors lying strewn upon the ground. But Mrs. 
 Cottonwood was now stringing her emerald 
 necklaces, and both dressed up in glossy 
 leaves, which rustled in the wind like silken 
 skirts. 
 
 Every morning some tree, adding a new 
 flower to the spring, would ask, *'Has Easter 
 come?" 
 
 They were very busy, whispering and plan- 
 ning and working together, deciding on pretty 
 
60 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 designs and choosing becoming colors, and no 
 little maid was ever more interested in her 
 spring frock. Yet after all this talk and 
 trouble, each tree chose the pattern that her 
 mother used to wear, who had dressed as her 
 mother dressed, and the pretty and varied 
 styles at last ready for Easter were nothing 
 new at all, for each fresh and smiling tree 
 wore exactly the same sweet flowered pattern 
 that her great-great-grandmother wore ever 
 so many Easters ago. 
 
 So Easter morning came, and when Polly 
 had brightened her old dark-green dress with 
 a new ribbon, she ran out of the gate and over 
 the field, through the wood, to the home of Por- 
 tia and Pearl. The carriage was at the 
 door. 
 
 **We are going to church," said Portia. 
 ^'Run back, little Polly, and put on your best 
 dress." 
 
 But Polly had no best dress. She had hoped 
 they would take her as she was, though when 
 she saw Portia's tan suit and Pearl's pink 
 freshness, she knew how plain was her own 
 
THE COTTONWOOD 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 61 
 
 dark frock, as plain as that of the little ever- 
 green tree near by. 
 
 **I will keep church in the woods/' she said, 
 smiling; *^but when you come back, Portia, 
 you must tell us what Easter means." 
 
 Then Portia and Pearl and their pretty 
 mamma, like bright flowers looking forth from 
 the dark winter bud, nodded to Polly as they 
 wheeled away. 
 
 But at the gate the mother said, ^^Stop, and 
 let us take Polly, too.'' 
 
 *'She is not dressed for church," sighed 
 Pearl. 
 
 The mother replied, '* Polly, not Polly's 
 dress, would see and hear and enjoy." 
 
 But Polly did not answer their call ; she was 
 huddled behind the fir tree, so like herself in 
 its shabby green; though when she could no 
 longer hear the lively wheels, down she tum- 
 bled in a little heap upon the ground and hid 
 her face in the grass. Then, swallowing some- 
 thing very like a lump, she rubbed her blue 
 eyes red, looked up, and saw 
 
 Yes, it was Spring, though Polly never 
 
62 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 would have guessed if something had not told 
 her; for Spring was not dressed in green. 
 Through a silvery veil her yellow robe was all 
 a-flutter with rosy ribbon caught up with coral 
 clasps ; only her sandals were green. 
 
 *^Wake up, Polly I" called Spring. 
 
 ** Wake up, wake up I" echoed the robin. 
 
 But Polly was not asleep, though you are 
 sure to think her dreaming. For miles aroimd 
 all had gone to church, so nobody saw what 
 befell Polly when Spring came coaxing. 
 
 The robin interrupted them. **It is time/' 
 said he, *Ho judge which tree is fairest." 
 
 *^Dear me,'' sighed Spring, ^Hhose that are 
 not so very pretty will blame me. Still, there 
 is a nice variety, don't you think so? Sum- 
 mer's wardrobe is only a green uniform, while 
 mine is like the soft reflection of autunmal 
 hues. Yet tell me, Polly, how should you look 
 at the flowers of the trees to find out how beau- 
 tiful they are?" 
 
 ^^ Through a magnifying-glass," said Polly 
 promptly. 
 
 Spring laughed. '^Even so. I was going to 
 
THE BOXELDER WAS CxREEN 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 63 
 
 say, with the eyes of love, but you have popped 
 an idea into my head: I will turn you into a 
 magnif ying-glass. ' ' 
 
 Polly looked uneasy, pinching her chubby 
 arm to see whether she was a little girl or a 
 microscope. 
 
 **When you are a magnif ying-glass," con- 
 tinued Spring, **you and the robin and the bee 
 shall be the three judges to tell which tree is 
 fairest." 
 
 Then Spring summoned a bee, and presto 1 
 before Polly knew it, she was no bigger than 
 a bumblebee herself, sitting like a fairy queen 
 between the wings of her new friend — quite 
 safe from the sting-end, she was sure. 
 
 Up, up flew Polly and the bee, straight to the 
 silver maple. But the silver maple had lost 
 her flowers, and in their place winged seed 
 hung like katydids under a flock of butterfly 
 leaves. 
 
 The flowers of the red maple, too, had burned 
 out, though all her seed were winged with 
 flame. 
 
 Their sister, the boxelder, not so eager 
 
64 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 to bloom, had forgotten to pull out the old 
 brown bastings of last year's gown. 
 
 ^^How untidy!'' thought Polly, remember- 
 ing. 
 
 However, the boxelder was green with leafy 
 sprays and threadlike flowers, while her com- 
 panion shimmered with silken tassels. 
 
 ^^They are beautiful, like floss," cried 
 Polly. 
 
 ^'But remind me of lovely cornsilk," said 
 the bee. 
 
 **Hush," breathed Polly, in a-flutter, ^^and 
 listen to the music." 
 
 *' Perhaps it is my buzzing that you hear," 
 modestly returned the bee. 
 
 '*No, no," cried Polly, clapping her hands 
 and nearly sliding from the velvet back, **it 
 is maple-music!" 
 
 For the sugar maple was swinging out, on 
 silken strands, a lot of little bells of sunlit 
 green. 
 
 **I am clothed with Easter chimes," laughed 
 she; ^^hear the zephyr ring my bells!" 
 
 **The very sweetest tree," spoke Polly. 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 65 
 
 **0 Polly, Polly/' sighed the bee, sadly shak- 
 ing her head, **I fear you have a fondness for 
 maple sugar." 
 
 ** And all the time," retorted Polly, **you are 
 thinking of honey." 
 
 Which was quite true, for the bee turned 
 nimbly to the Norway maple. 
 
 The Norway maple, a shining green, was 
 dappled all over with clusters of stars. 
 
 *^My stars radiate the joy of the spring- 
 time," she breathed. 
 
 ^* 'Tis true," declared Polly, inhaling her 
 perfumed breath, ^*and you are the sweetest of 
 all!" 
 
 **You know she is a foreigner," whispered 
 the bee, flying to the American elm. 
 
 ** After all," said the elm, *^back of a smile 
 lies the thought; and beyond the beauty of a 
 flower lies its meaning, the seed." 
 
 *'The elm is apologizing for her seedy gar- 
 ment," said the horsechestnut bluntly. 
 
 For the elm was covered with green samaras, 
 each encircled by a gauzy wing, notched at the 
 end and trimmed with silver f rino-e. 
 
66 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 **What beautiful bangles!" was Polly's 
 thought. 
 
 The bee now flew down to the brook, where 
 the white birch, veiling her pearly bark in 
 green, was swinging her tassels of bronze and 
 gold and studding her branches with emerald 
 pins. 
 
 ^^Oh, the pretty, pretty birch," bubbled 
 Polly, *'how modestly she bends her head." 
 
 '^Gazing at her reflection in the water," re- 
 marked her friend, turning to the silvery 
 beauty of the beech tree. 
 
 The beech was unfurling her silky fans from 
 their tortoiseshell cases and pricking her fluffy 
 balls with green. 
 
 ^*I came near forgetting this," she said, 
 tucking a little nut-flower near the tip of a 
 branch. 
 
 **We are so glad that Easter is late this 
 year," said the ash trees, putting on their 
 green and purple plumes. 
 
 *^ However, I had to hurry more than usual,'* 
 exclaimed the white oak, *^in order to take 
 charge of the services,'^ 
 
EASTER CHIMES 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 67 
 
 And lo, the oak was clothed in fairy velvet 
 vestments of pink and misty green, veiled in 
 a shimmer of silver down and fringed with 
 beaded tassels. Hidden in the axils of leaves 
 were tiny round flowers, which would be 
 acorns when velvet and fringes and silver 
 sheen were only a memory of the pomp and 
 glory of spring. 
 
 *^Are you ready, are you ready?" called the 
 robin. 
 
 *^0h, please wait till I finish my surplice 1" 
 cried the little dogwood, unfolding another 
 large white rosette. 
 
 '' 'Button, button, who's got the button?' " 
 laughed the mottled sycamore, dangling her 
 red and green balls. 
 
 But the bee had paused on her wanderings, 
 well repaid by stolen sips of honey. 
 
 ''Alas," exclaimed the horsechestnut, "my 
 candles are not lighted I" 
 
 "And my white garlands are not ready 1" 
 lamented the locust. 
 
 "Nor are my golden chalices!" echoed the 
 tulip-tree. 
 
68 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 **A11 too late," the linden sighed, ''all too 
 late I shall swing my ivory censers !" 
 
 "And I bear my altar flowers!" cried the 
 catalpa. 
 
 ''Kind thoughts are the true flowers of life," 
 said the elm. 
 
 "Children," said the oak, "our bright spring 
 raiment is fleeting, like the flush of dawn ; our 
 true and enduring beauty lies in the use for 
 which this is but a joyful preparation." 
 
 Then all the trees in their fair attire, a con- 
 gregation adorned for the Day, listened to the 
 pontiff oak. 
 
 While flower-bells were ringing, 
 And perfumed censers swung, 
 
 The oak spoke from his pulpit, 
 With shining tassels hung. 
 
 Wood thrush and bluebird formed the choir ; 
 and the robin sounded the note that services 
 were to begin — nay, were to continue, for they 
 had begun long ago, when the first bud had 
 expanded and unfolded at the matin bell of 
 spring. 
 
THE WHITE BIRCH AND THE BEECH TREE 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 69 
 
 ((' 
 
 We greet the year adorned with flowers, '^ 
 continued the oak. '*Let none envy another, 
 for remember that 'One star differ eth from 
 another in glory.' All help to make the sea- 
 son sweet, from the first gray catkin of the wil- 
 low to the golden crown of chestnut bloom. 
 We silently mark the passing of the bright 
 hours of spring, and all who have not learned 
 to tell the time of year by our flower-dial have 
 bent their eyes too much upon the ground. 
 When they learn to look up, they will find the 
 trees telling how sweetly pass the sunlit hours, 
 and will know that there is a benediction of 
 flowers above their heads as well as flowers 
 upon the ground crushed by their feet. Who 
 that looks upon a tree adorned for the spring, 
 can but ' Consider the lilies' ? It is not vanity, 
 but love, that clothes us, for we are making the 
 earth beautiful for all, and consecrating our- 
 selves to another year of usefulness." 
 
 As the oak paused, the robin repeated the 
 praise of all the trees, and well he might, for 
 where else could be found so fair a company ? 
 
 The robin is right," said Spring. ^'I love 
 
 ii\ 
 
^0 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 them all, and find each in her own way beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 '^Yes, I, for one, cannot choose the prettiest 
 tree, for I, too, love them all!" cried the bee, 
 and dived right into the heart of a violet — 
 forgetful of Polly upon her back, who was 
 brushed off and bumped upon the ground. 
 
 There she sat, rubbing her eyes and looking 
 about her, grown big again and just the same 
 Polly that she ever was, and were it not for 
 the pollen on her dress, she might have thought 
 it all a dream — though she was rolling among 
 the dandelions, it is true. 
 
 There was the sound of wheels upon the 
 road, and here were Portia and Pearl. 
 
 But where was Spring? Everywhere — ^lips 
 laughing from rosy buds, cheeks glowing 
 from ruddy leaves, hair shining in yellow 
 catkins. 
 
 ^^O Polly, PoUy!" laughed Pearl and Por- 
 tia, running up. 
 
 **I don't care," said Polly, jumping up and 
 shaking herself out from her tangle, *^the bee 
 knocked me right over." 
 
A SYLVAN EASTER 71 
 
 ''O Polly, silly, silly Polly,'' sighed Portia, 
 "dreaming of bumblebees." 
 
 ''I'm not silly," declared Polly, ''and if you 
 had heard what the oak was preaching, you'd 
 be as wise as I am now. As for the bee — oh, 
 there she goes I" 
 
 Then Polly smiled to herself as she settled 
 down under the sunrise oak, clasping in her 
 chubby hand the lily which they had brought 
 her, while Portia told the real meaning of 
 Easter. 
 
 "Easter is our awakening into a new and 
 higher life. We may lay aside old garments 
 of the mind, as we do of the body, and clothe 
 ourselves with a new spirit ; for the true Easter 
 adornment is within, of which the outer orna- 
 ment is but a symbol. So on this Easter Day 
 let us blossom into a better, brighter life and 
 show the Divinity within, even as the trees are 
 showing that hidden within them lies the 
 power to burst hard buds and proclaim with 
 flower and leaf that life of which winter could 
 not rob them, which is one Life, one Thought 
 
DOGWOOD IN BLOOM 
 
 Oh, cold was my shift in winter! 
 
 Oh, white was my shroud of snow ! 
 Nay, soft was my robe of slumber, 
 
 For I was asleep, you know. 
 
 You carved of the ice my casket 
 
 cradle of crystal light ! 
 
 While roughly the wind was rocking, 
 
 1 dreamed to my heart 's delight. 
 
 Old Boreas' blowing bore you 
 The dolor of dirge and sigh: 
 
 The wind all the while was whistling 
 My sleepytime lullaby. 
 
 You saw in the frost enamel 
 The seal of the silent hours : 
 
 The frost that impearled my branches 
 Was only my dream of flowers ! 
 
 Whatever the thrall of winter. 
 Whatever the thought it bring, 
 
 I weave from that pall of whiteness 
 The surplice I wear in spring ! 
 
 The soul of the marble statue, 
 
 Though chiseled in storm and strife, 
 
 I wake to the truth I dreamed of 
 
 The beauty and joy of life ! 
 
 72 
 
THE POiMP AND GLORY OF SPRING 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE OF 
 JONSBODA 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE OF JONSBODA 
 
 HERE was once a large and beau- 
 tiful linden-tree, for which tradi- 
 tion had won the name of the 
 Holy Tree. For many years, 
 longer than anyone could remem- 
 ber, it had stood on a farm in Jonsboda, 
 Smaland, in the south of Sweden. Misfortune 
 w^ould surely follow him who harmed the 
 tree; so, safeguarded by adoration and fear, 
 in the seventeenth century it still lived on the 
 farm of Ingemar Svenson, a real family tree. 
 Under the heavy shade played Ingemar 's 
 three children, repeating the traditions that 
 they had heard about it, and loving it for the 
 sake of these stories, for the kind shelter of 
 its heart-shaped leaves, and for the sweetness 
 of its summer bloom. 
 
 The three children grew up, loving the tree 
 75 
 
76 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 as naturally as they loved one another. Yet 
 to Ingemar's little daughter there often came 
 a dream of the linden-tree; her ears seemed 
 to catch a voice when the wind stirred its leafy 
 boughs, and her eyes saw more than creamy 
 petals in the sweet surprise of scented flowers. 
 Always her dream filled her heart when the lin- 
 den flowers were budding — a dream that came 
 she knew not whence, a dream of something 
 that the linden-tree was trying to tell with un- 
 folding flower, until the secret was lost in the 
 very sweetness of its breath. 
 
 Her two brothers studied for the priest- 
 hood. Instead of being called Carl and Sven 
 Ingemarson (son of Ingemar), they chose a 
 new surname, right from the family tree. 
 Tilia^ the linden-tree's classical name, and 
 andros, Greek for man, gave them Tiliander 
 — ^linden-tree man. 
 
 But the old linden-tree, not content to name 
 the boys, whispered something to Ingemar 's 
 daughter, and repeated it on her wedding day. 
 She married a farmer, Ingemar Bengtson, and 
 they had one son, named Nils. 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 77 
 
 When Nils studied for the priesthood and 
 looked for a surname, the linden-tree named 
 him Linnaeus. There was another linden fam- 
 ily name — Lindelius. The linden-tree had 
 three branches, one for each linden name, and 
 it was said that when the last male heir to each 
 name died, one branch withered and was no 
 more. 
 
 The day that the linden named young Nils 
 was a proud day for the old tree. Yet what 
 was the message that the linden had given 
 Ingemar 's daughter ? She was a mother now ; 
 and her son heard the same faint message, 
 wondering what the linden-tree's meaning to 
 the family was, beyond a name. 
 
 There was a beautiful garden at the parson- 
 age of Sven Tiliander, where Nils studied with 
 his cousins, and when Nils was pastor at 
 Rashult he also had a garden of wonderful 
 plants. His young wife, Christina, from the 
 barren north, dearly loved these southern flow- 
 ers, and eagerly welcomed signs of spring. 
 
 Meanwhile the old homestead linden was 
 opening coral buds and unfolding emerald 
 
78 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 leaves. Under the leaves grew long apple- 
 green bracts and from the center of each feath- 
 er-shaped bract hung a spray of little round 
 buds, swelling in the softening air, growing 
 larger and fairer day by day. But on the 
 twenty-third of May, in the year 1707, long 
 before these buds were ready to burst into pale 
 blossoms, the wind brought the old linden-tree 
 word from Rashult that a new flower had 
 bloomed and lay on the breast of Christina. 
 
 The child was named Carl. His father 
 decked his cradle with flowers, his mother 
 would quiet him with a blossom. 
 
 By-and-by the family, and the family flow- 
 ers, all moved to the beautiful parish of Stren- 
 brohult, and in the new garden little Carl 
 learned to walk. Soon he was talking to 
 the flowers : Did not they, too, have their faces 
 washed? The dew did it, and the sun dried 
 them and kissed them and told them to be 
 good. He was called Carl; they also had 
 names. They were always dressed the same, 
 but did they think he was another little boy 
 every time he wore a different dress ? If he had 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 79 
 
 a flower-bed all his own, he was sure that his 
 flowers would always know him, as he knew 
 them; so his mother and father, who were just 
 like all mothers and fathers, let Carl have his 
 own little plot, which contained one specimen 
 of all that grew in the garden. 
 
 One day Carl went to a country fair, and in 
 the evening a little group sat around upon the 
 grass while his father told the folk all about 
 their neighbors, the native plants — not know- 
 ing what trouble he was storing up for him- 
 self ; for ^^ Little pitchers have big ears,'' and 
 Carl sat very quiet, listening with all his might. 
 Afterwards, it was ^* Father, this," and *^ Fath- 
 er, that," until Father could tell no more. 
 When Carl failed to remember the answers, 
 his father would preach a. little sermon to a 
 small and select audience of one, to the end 
 that there must be no more questions until 
 answers were remembered, and this, perhaps, 
 was as good a lesson as one in botany. 
 
 Carl loved to wander through field and 
 wood, where he found plants to press, or to 
 plant in the little plot now known as ** Carl's 
 
80 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 garden. ' ' But while his wild plants were over- 
 running the family garden, and the wild bees 
 that he brought home were besieging the do- 
 mestic hives, his mother was busily planning 
 the future of her ^* Little Botany Boy." She 
 chose him for the church. There is a story 
 told* of how one day his mother found him 
 Avith the loved family Bible, and her heart 
 bounded with joy that her long-cherished 
 dream might come true ; but no, he was press- 
 ing some new-found flowers therein. 
 
 ^^ ^Dear child,' she said, *you must not put 
 herbs and flowers in my beautiful book. It 
 would be quite a sin to spoil the Holy Bible.' 
 
 ** 'Pray forgive me. Mother ! But these are 
 the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen, so 
 I thought I would preserve them best of all, 
 for I have heard both you and Father say that 
 the Bible is the Book of Life; and surely, if 
 I put the flowers between its leaves, they will 
 retain their color, the Bible keeping them alive 
 forever.' 
 
 **The Floral King,'' by Albert Alberg. 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 81 
 
 ^^ * Child, when we call the Bible the Book 
 of Life, we mean by that, not the life we see 
 before us, but the spiritual growth of our 
 souls, for every thought we think is a flower 
 culled in the garden of our soul. There, as on 
 earth, grow many various plants, some of 
 wondrous beauty, and others stained with sin. 
 But every time we humbly read in the Sacred 
 Writ, a seed is sown in our heart, which some 
 day will bloom, and bear holy fruit.' 
 
 *' 'How beautifully you talk. Mother!' 
 
 *' 'Well, you must diligently read your 
 Bible, and in your heart will grow the seed 
 of goodness and humility; but I fear ' 
 
 " 'What do you fear, Mother?' 
 
 *' 'I fear you love the fair flowers of the 
 earth too much to care for the seeds that were 
 watered with tears in the Garden of Gethse- 
 mane.' 
 
 ** '0 Mother, no, I won't forget my Bible. 
 But when I see a flower I think this way. 
 Why does God make the cold, damp earth 
 grow such lovely creatures with such beauti- 
 ful colors? Why, if not to make us happy 
 
82 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 with the sight ? And then I fancy the flowers 
 saying with their petaled lips, **Look at us, 
 and think how kind and good is God." O 
 Mother, every flower must have been a thought 
 of God.' 
 
 « *Why, how you speak, child! Well, yes 
 you are right, it must be so.' " 
 
 But Carl was now a big boy — eight years old 
 — ^high time that he gave his thoughts to seri- 
 ous study, so for two years he suffered under a 
 tutor. Then one day his mother tearfully 
 packed his little belongings, and started him 
 off to school at Wexio, where at the end of 
 eight years his teachers said, *' Apprentice him 
 to a shoemaker." He was only bright in nat- 
 ural history — ^though w"hat had this to do with 
 shoes? 
 
 Now this was not at all encouraging. Carl 
 was the eldest of five children, and his father 
 felt sorely perplexed. He stopped in to see 
 Dr. Rothman, in Wexio, and told him what 
 troubled his mind as well as what troubled his 
 body — ^the very best thing that he could have 
 done. 
 
THE SWEETNESS OF ITS SUMMER BLOOM 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 83 
 
 "I guess that that is really what is the mat- 
 ter with you/' the Wexio doctor said, ^^ While 
 as for the boy — well, it isn't such a bad S3rmp- 
 tom for him to love natural history. Send him 
 to me. I'll turn him into a doctor." 
 
 And he offered to provide for him, if his 
 father could not, while he finished his course 
 at the ** Gymnasium" or Latin school. And so 
 Carl found his first fairy godfather. For one 
 good, glad year he studied under Dr. Roth- 
 man, and then he was ready for the University 
 of Lund. 
 
 ^*Ah, it is all very well," sighed his mother, 
 when they told her that her first-born was not 
 to serve God through the church. ^^Ah, yes," 
 and she glanced at Samuel, her second son, 
 *^But he shall not waste his time on so idle 
 a study as herbs and flowers!" 
 
 Carl started to Lund with this letter of 
 recommendation from the Wexio school : 
 
 *^The youths in schools may be likened unto 
 young saplings in a plantation, where it some- 
 times happens, although seldom, that young 
 trees, despite the great care bestowed upon 
 
84 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 them, will not improve by being engrafted, but 
 continue like wild untrained stems, and when 
 they are finally removed and transplanted, 
 they change their wild nature, and become 
 beautiful trees that bear excellent fruit. In 
 which this respect, and no other, this youth is 
 now promoted to the University, where, per- 
 haps, he may come to a clime that will favor 
 his further development." 
 
 At Lund Carl lodged with Dr. Stobaeus. Dr. 
 Stobseus had a fine museum and a library from 
 which a fellow student secretly lent Carl books. 
 
 Now the good old mother of Dr. Stobaeus, 
 who was infirm and ailing and not inclined to 
 sleep, knew that something was wrong. Could 
 she not see a light burning in young Linnaeus' 
 room long after a youth of twenty should be 
 in bed? *^We are flying in the face of Provi- 
 dence," she told her son, ^^and inviting 
 fire." 
 
 He promised, in his old-time, obedient way, 
 to quiet her fears by investigating their cause. 
 So one night, at two o'clock, he stole softly up 
 to Carl's room — and was himself taken by sur- 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 85 
 
 prise. There sat Carl — surrounded by big 
 books of botany. 
 
 ^^ Young man/' the doctor sternly asked, tap- 
 ping the truant books, ^^ where did you get 
 these?" 
 
 Carl confessed. 
 
 *^Well, well, well," the doctor growled. 
 **And now, young man, go to bed." 
 
 Early in the morning. Dr. Stobaeus sent for 
 the culprit, who went with a heavy heart. But 
 there, sitting in the stern doctor's chair, he 
 found his second fairy godfather. The doc- 
 tor's museum, his library, and his love were 
 Carl's forevermore. Yes, the lad was to join 
 them at the family table, too, and so he became 
 as a son in the house. 
 
 The pleasant school year passed away, the 
 last at Lund, for when home on his vaca- 
 tion. Dr. Rothman said, ^*Now you must go to 
 Upsala." 
 
 Carl, the poor student, entered Upsala, the 
 oldest seat of Swedish learning, little knowing 
 the glory that he was one day to shed over this 
 great University. It was a daring leap, for 
 
86 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 coins were few and meals came by chance. Yet 
 perhaps he remembered, '* Poverty is the at- 
 tendant of a good mind," as he sat mending 
 his poor shoes with folded paper. 
 
 One day Carl went into the University gar- 
 den to examine some plants. There he forgot 
 that he was hungry, he forgot his mended 
 shoes. While he was communing with the 
 flowers, an old man entered the garden — a 
 man of note, he seemed to be. He shot some 
 gruff questions at Carl: ^^What are you doing 
 here ? Where did you come f rom ?'' 
 
 Carl was so shabby, he did not wonder at the 
 questions. 
 
 *^Are you acquainted with plants?" contin- 
 ued the old man. *^How long have you been 
 studying?" 
 
 Carl lifted his eyes — dark, beautiful, pene- 
 trating — from the flowers to his questioner, 
 and answered bravely and well. The stranger 
 looked surprised — this poor youth displayed 
 much knowledge of botany. And lo, to Carl 
 the garden suddenly became enchanted, and 
 the old man was transformed into his third 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 87 
 
 fairy godfather, who said, ^^ Follow me." 
 So Carl followed him home and henceforth 
 Dr. Celsius was the best loved of all his fairy; 
 godfathers. 
 
 Pupils now came to Carl. He wrote a short 
 essay showing a new way of classifying plants, 
 and was able to give lectures on botany. 
 
 After awhile it was decided that Carl should 
 go on a long and lonely journey to find out 
 more about the northern plants. This awoke 
 the fears of his mother, who urged : 
 
 **In thine own land live and dwell, 
 Working there with humble faith; 
 God will then provide thee well/' 
 
 Yet with a larger faith his father wrote: 
 ^*If you think it will lead to your future ad- 
 vancement, then pray that God may help you 
 in this. He is omnipresent, even among the 
 desolate Alps." 
 
 So Carl set out on his wonderful journey, 
 over mountain, through bog, and by boat, to 
 beyond the Arctic Circle. But at last, after 
 five months of mishaps, he came back safe and 
 sound. 
 
88 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 And now every one wanted to hear him ; but 
 as he had no big letters after his name which 
 meant a doctor's degree, he had to give up the 
 lectures. 
 
 Nothing daunted, Carl set out on a little 
 journey to collect plants. One day he stopped 
 at the house of Dr. Moraeus, who had two 
 daughters, with one of whom he straightway 
 fell in love. 
 
 But Father Morseus said, **No degree, no 
 daughter." So once more Carl set out, and 
 though he could not speak Dutch, he went to 
 Holland, where he won his degree and found 
 his fourth fairy godfather. George Cliff ort, a 
 rich burgomaster, gave him the care of his 
 body, his gardens, and museum. Carl lived 
 in luxury, like a son of the house, published his 
 first five books on botany, and became famous. 
 
 England, France, Holland, all wanted him 
 to stay, but he returned to his cold northern 
 home to receive the blessing of his father — ^his 
 mother had not lived to know the fame of 
 her ''Little Botany Boy." In Stockholm he 
 tacked up his doctor's sign, and hither, in the 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 89 
 
 month of roses, he brought his Sara Lisa. 
 
 At first Carl Linnaeus found himself *^a 
 prophet without honor in his own country." It 
 is true that as a doctor, he was making money; 
 but ^^he was fonder of meddling with plants 
 than with patients. ' ' Still did he long to be * ^ a 
 Priest of Flora''; and three years later, he 
 was offered the Chair of Botany in Upsala, in 
 which he sat for thirty long and happy years, 
 lecturing, and writing books on plants, ani- 
 mals and minerals — books that made him his 
 country's pride. 
 
 When Carl began the study of botany, he 
 found a number of rather crude ways of classi- 
 fying plants. He made a new system of plant 
 relationship, based on the pistils and stamens 
 of flowers. He shortened the long Latin names, 
 giving each plant a clear, concise description. 
 He classified animals and minerals, too, and is 
 called *Hhe Lawgiver of Natural History." 
 
 Carl gave the University such a name that 
 students flocked from near and far. Science 
 showered him with honors, medals were struck 
 in his name, and King Frederick made him a 
 
90 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Knight of the Polar Star and a noble of the 
 land. He took for his crest three crowns on 
 three fields, emblematic of the Three King- 
 doms of Nature, the hemlet bore his favorite 
 flower. 
 
 Did the old linden-tree dream of the honors 
 done one of the linden-named? Perhaps the 
 wind or the bees brought word, though the lin- 
 den-tree must have known it before, and that 
 was the message that she had been trying to 
 tell. 
 
 And so the years passed, silvering the hair 
 of the ^^Little Botany Boy,'' yet he ever kept 
 the brilliant eyes and the alertness of his 
 youth, and that love of order, promptness, and 
 regularity which, with unfaltering faith, had 
 accomplished his life work. 
 
 Then for six years he rested as an invalid 
 from his labors. Carl, the eldest of his six 
 children, sat in his Chair of Botany. When he 
 could no longer walk, he would be carried to 
 his museum, and the treasures that had come 
 from the north and the south and the east and 
 the west would repeat their stories over and 
 
THE LINDEN-TREE 91 
 
 over, and again Carl would thank God that 
 **He had permitted him to visit His secret 
 council chambers." 
 
 In the white dawn of the year 1778, when he 
 was three-score years and ten, while the old 
 linden-tree was sleeping and the linden blos- 
 soms lived only in the dreams of those who 
 loved them, Carl Linnaeus, born with spring 
 flowers, now too restless to wait for their sweet 
 encouragement, picked up his staff once more 
 and set out alone on his last and most wonder- 
 ful j ourney of all. And so he found his ^ ' fields 
 of asphodel." 
 
FOREST LEAVES 
 
FOREST LEAVES 
 
 1. — The Little Spruce Tree 
 
 AR up on a mountain a baby spruce 
 seed cuddled with her little sisters, 
 two and two, in a cone cradle, 
 while to the wind's Rock-a-by, 
 the mother-tree swung them to sleep on the 
 waving bough. Yet all the time, in the snug 
 darkness, this little seed lay wondering what 
 was outside of the cradle, for something must 
 lie beyond it, she was sure; and one day, as 
 if in answer to her longing to know, the 
 wind loosened her scale coverlet and tossed 
 her out, like a young bird pushed from its nest 
 to fly. 
 
 Borne lightly on the wind, slowly down, 
 down, down, she sailed through the frosty air, 
 with her one gauzy wing to buoy her up, like 
 
 95 
 
96 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 hope, till far below, on the slope of the moun- 
 tain, a resting place was found; and here, 
 weary from her long way on the wind, the little 
 seed laid her irrideseent wing to rest forever- 
 more, and fell asleep. 
 
 In the very spot where the little seed fell 
 asleep, a tiny red spruce tree awoke with the 
 spring. The sunlight was tempered by the 
 sheltering boughs of an old black spruce, whose 
 plainness was beautified by kindliness as she 
 said, **My daughter, I welcome you to the for- 
 est!'' 
 
 And the little tree looked up and called her 
 '^Mother." 
 
 Lifting her pretty head still higher, the lit- 
 tle spruce tree gazed curiously around her for- 
 est home. *^This must be that world which I 
 have always longed to know," thought she. 
 **IIow green and wonderful it is; I shall stay 
 here content forever." 
 
 Forest neighbors crowded the little stranger 
 on all sides ; and in her heart she felt a kinship 
 with the evergreen trees, large and small. 
 
 **But who are these?" she asked, for there 
 
FOREST LEAVES 97 
 
 were other trees, whose odd fashions she did 
 not understand. 
 
 **They are maples/' answered the black 
 spruce. 
 
 Every autumn, as the changing seasons came 
 and went, the maple leaves flushed and fell to 
 the ground ; but in the spring the buds on the 
 bare branches would redden and part like smil- 
 ing lips, until all the maples were laughing 
 with bright flowers. After spring flowers came 
 summer green, when the little spruce tree 
 would glance ruefully at her old dress, worn 
 so many seasons. 
 
 ^^I should think," said a dainty maple, 
 *Hhat you would spruce up when spring 
 comes.'' 
 
 So she trimmed the old gown with new frills 
 of green, though these made it dingy by con- 
 trast. 
 
 **Do not forget," the old spruce consoled 
 her, as the little tree gazed wistfully at the 
 bright new dresses of the maples, ''do not for- 
 get that all through snowtime you helped to 
 keep the forest green." 
 
98 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 l<- 
 
 'Yes, I remember," cried the little tree, 
 brightening; ^'and men with horses and sleds 
 carried away many little evergreen trees. Tell 
 me, where did they go?" 
 
 **Out into the great world," replied the old 
 spruce. 
 
 « 'The great world,' " repeated the little 
 spruce ; "is not this beautiful forest all ? Does 
 something still lie beyond?" 
 
 ** Something still lies beyond," answered the 
 old tree. 
 
 **And what do the little evergreen trees do 
 out in the great world?" 
 
 "They gladden the hearts of children on 
 Christmas day." 
 
 "Shall I ever ride out of the forest, into the 
 heart of a child?" eagerly asked the little 
 tree. 
 
 "Look as pretty as you can, and perhaps you 
 will go on that wonderful ride." 
 
 So the little spruce tree grew like a beauti- 
 ful green pyramid ; yet every winter the men 
 with sleds passed her by; and at last the old 
 spruce said, "Be content to grow and hang 
 
FOREST LEAVES 99 
 
 your boughs with cones, which will last much 
 longer than the colored candles on a Christmas 
 
 tree." 
 
 ^*I will grow and grow and grow till I touch 
 the stars 1" cried the little tree, and lifted her 
 head higher and higher and grew so tall that 
 her green garment no longer swept the 
 ground, for her slender stem was like a col- 
 umn, and she wore her branches like a crown. 
 In time no other tree shut out the sunlight or 
 the sight of the stars. 
 
 ''Oh, if I could reach you I" she would cry, 
 when the snow lay deep about her feet and the 
 stars sparkled in the sky. 
 
 The only music on these winter nights was 
 the song of the spruce trees, though sometimes 
 the maples talked in their sleep when the wind 
 jostled them too roughly. Yet often the little 
 spruce tree could hear another sound, like a 
 far-away call from the valley. 
 
 ''What is that in the valley, and whom is it 
 calling?'' she asked. 
 
 "It is the river," replied the old spruce, 
 "calling the trees to come." 
 
100 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 **The river? Where will the river take the 
 trees?" 
 
 But the old tree trembled. ^'It is well to 
 abide in the forest," said she, ''with a hundred 
 years of life." 
 
 **Just one more question," said the little 
 spruce again; *'do the trees answer the river's 
 call?" 
 
 **Grow taller," replied the old tree, ''and 
 you can see for yourself." 
 
 But one day a storm arose, and many spruce 
 trees lost their footing on the mountain side 
 and fell. The little spruce tree could now see 
 the river, and far beyond the valley to the dis- 
 tant mountains, where other spruce trees, 
 thousands of them, grew. 
 
 "What a wide, wide world I" she cried, and 
 at night hearkened no more to the river, but 
 listened to the ceaseless song of the spruce 
 trees borne by the wind across the valley. 
 
 "What are they singing?" she asked. 
 
 "They are restless," was the reply; "they 
 long to dance to the river's playing. Heed 
 them not." 
 
FOREST LEAVES 101 
 
 But the little spruce tree could not shut out 
 the song of the discontented trees. She lis- 
 tened to the lure of the river, ''Come, dance 
 with me I" and their eager reply, ''We are com- 
 ing, we are coming!'' 
 
 And then she saw that the trees really did 
 go with the river, for men came and chopped 
 them down and hewed off their branches and 
 floated them down the current; and she won- 
 dered what that great world was like to which 
 the Christmas trees had gone and whither the 
 river was hurrying down the valley, bearing 
 with it the spruce trees from the mountains. 
 
 II.— The Poet 
 
 One summer day a young man climbed the 
 mountain side, wearily, as if weights were on 
 his feet, and as he lifted his eyes to the spruce 
 tree, she saw that his heart was heavy in his 
 breast. 
 
 "The mountain is not so steep,'' she re- 
 proved him, "that you need drag yourself up 
 in that way." 
 
102 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Though the young man was a pioet, he could 
 not understand the language of a tree ; yet in 
 his soul he felt her gentle reproof and hastened 
 his lagging steps. 
 
 '^Come, rest under my branches," she whis- 
 .pered. 
 
 And this he did, and for a long while stood 
 gazing through the evergreen forest to the far 
 mountain. 
 
 ^^How fast the trees are hurrying," said he, 
 * * out into the world 1 " 
 
 ^^What will the trees do out in the world?" 
 asked the spruce tree eagerly. 
 
 Still musingly he continued, *^They will bear 
 news to the homes of men; I would they might 
 bear my message to the hearts of menl" 
 
 **Do spruce trees bear news and messages 
 as well as cones?" she questioned. 
 
 His troubled eyes sought her murmuring 
 boughs, and he listened to catch her words- 
 
 '^Lie here and rest," breathed the spruce 
 tree; so he cast himself upon the ground, 
 rested his head upon his clasped hands, and 
 gazed up into her whispering branches. 
 
^ 13 
 
FOREST LEAVES 103 
 
 ^*Some good fairy must have led me to you, 
 beautiful child of the forest," he said to her. 
 *'Let me talk to you awhile and listen to what 
 you have to tell. 
 
 **Picea — for is not that your classical name ? 
 — Picea, we are alike, you and I ; you are one 
 tree in a great forest, while I am like a tree 
 in a forest of men ; yet though you are happy 
 and do your part willingly, I am not content 
 simply to serve in the place where I find my- 
 self. 
 
 *' Picea, if you and I had been cut off in our 
 early days, you would have been a Christmas 
 tree and I should have been a cherub ; but we 
 have been spared for some other purpose. Let 
 us hope that our best use will find us out. 
 Would you be willing to go out into the world 
 should the world have need of you?" 
 
 ** Should I leave my green boughs behind?" 
 she asked. ' ' The little Christmas trees went as 
 they were." 
 
 **You would leave your tree-garb behind," 
 He said, not knowing that he answered her. 
 
 "Picea, should you like to bear the record 
 
104 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 of Man's doing and undoing upon your white 
 bosom? For most spruce trees go forth into 
 the world as paper. Sometimes more than 
 twenty acres of the spruce sisterhood are 
 changed into the newspaper of a single day. 
 Yet after all, a newspaper lives but a day." 
 
 * * Only one day I ' ' repeated Picea. * ' The lit- 
 tle gauzy insects flying in the summer sun- 
 light, live as long as thatl" 
 
 "A newspaper lives but a day," he contin- 
 ued, **but a good book lives forever!" 
 
 And her murmuring branches echoed, **A 
 good book lives forever !" 
 
 He started at the touch of a falling cone. 
 
 **The wind almost makes you talk. Picea, 
 I am a poet, and that is how I know you 
 have a soul. Yes, I see more than a tree be- 
 neath your brown bark and green branches: 
 I see a friend, one who serves mankind. And 
 yet, Picea, I love you for yourself alone, and 
 for your message given me this summer after- 
 noon; for in the restlessness of my life in the 
 world I had lost the faith which here I have 
 found again — the faith that the same Care 
 
FOREST LEAVES 105 
 
 that safely enfolds the spruce seed in the cone 
 until it is time for it to fly, and then wings it 
 for flight, will guide us to our best use. The 
 seed does not question nor worry nor fear, but 
 obeys the wind that blows it and the spring 
 that calls it to awake." 
 
 Taking a notebook from his pocket, he 
 wrote: 
 
 If in this form, a forest tree, 
 God's purpose be fulfilled in me, 
 Then is my part of His great plan 
 To be the finest tree I can. 
 
 He laughed and tossed aside the leaf, yet 
 Picea had heard the words and was happy. 
 For all the while as he lay on the soft moss and 
 leaves this was the unceasing murmur of her 
 boughs, and now he had found the peace born 
 in her in the forest home. The Indian who is 
 in doubt goes solitary into the forest. Soli- 
 tary? He returns, satisfied, and &ays he has 
 talked with the Great Spirit. 
 
 The young man sprang lightly to his feet. 
 Laying his hand lovingly upon the rough, flak- 
 ing scales of her brown bark, ^' Picea," he said 
 
106 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 gravely, ^^I believe that you and I will meet 
 again. It may not be in this forest ; but some- 
 where, some day, somehow, you and I will meet 
 again I '^ 
 
 III. — The Paper Nest 
 
 The sun slipped back of the mountain and 
 night settled down, but Picea could not sleep, 
 though she seemed to be dreaming under the 
 silver coverlet of moonlight. 
 
 ** Perhaps I am not always to be a tree,'' she 
 whispered to the night wind. 
 
 ** Sleep, little tree," said the old spruce, 
 though Picea was now almost as tall as she. 
 **A11 too soon the change may come. When I 
 was a little seed, I slept content in the shelter- 
 ing cone until it was time to be a tree, though 
 it seemed a long, long while. This same trust I 
 have ever tried to teach you since the wind 
 brought you to the shelter of my boughs." 
 
 '^Tou have been a good foster-mother," said 
 Picea, softly. 
 
 "Only a nurse-tree !" laughed a pretty little 
 
FOREST LEAVES 107 
 
 red spruce. **It is so stylish to have a black 
 nurse 1'' 
 
 ''That was the part given me to fulfill," the 
 black spruce patiently replied. 
 
 *'I shall always call you 'Mother/ " said 
 Picea, lovingly, "and I hope that I may do my 
 part as well as you have done yours." 
 
 "Sleep, little one," repeated the old tree; 
 but in the morning she heard a question : 
 
 "Mother, was paper always made from 
 trees?" 
 
 "No, my child; many vegetable fibers have 
 been used to make it, though now it is made 
 chiefly of wood — so a bookworm told me." 
 
 Vespa, the wasp, was grinding off shreds 
 from an old log with her mandibles and work- 
 ing them in her moist jaws, to add to the edge 
 of her ever-growing nest. 
 
 As she pressed and kneaded the pellet into a 
 cord with her forelegs, she said, "I was the 
 very first to make paper out of wood. For a 
 long while only the Chinese knew how it was 
 done. Then about two centuries ago, ' ' she con- 
 tinued, when she had drawn the cord through 
 
108 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 her mandibles and flattened it into a strip of 
 paper, *^one named Reaumur noticed me at 
 work. He did not 'go to the ant/ but went to 
 the wasp and considered her ways ; and now a 
 great Man-made wasp, with sharp steel man- 
 dibles and iron jaws, sits upon the river bank, 
 making paper out of wood. Man calls the 
 wasp a mill.'' 
 
 As the summer days passed, Picea watched 
 Vespa making paper. When the chill, wet 
 days of autumn came, Vespa flew away and did 
 not return. Her work was done. 
 
 As the last bright leaves of the maples fell 
 to the ground, Picea 's neighbors called sleep- 
 ily, *^ Good-night!" 
 
 ^* Good-night," responded Picea, ''and good- 
 bye!" 
 
 ''Why 'Good-bye'?" asked a little maple 
 drowsily. 
 
 Picea looked wistfully through the evergreen 
 forest, intermixed with the fading foliage of 
 the hardwood trees, with here and there a 
 bright autumnal torch that the north wind had 
 not blown out, and sighed. She leaned her 
 
FOREST LEAVES 109 
 
 dark head a little closer to the maples, whis- 
 pering, ^^ Sleep sweetly through the winter, and 
 when the spring awakes you and hangs your 
 boughs with coral, think of me!" 
 
 *^But you will talk to us, will you not, when 
 the spring returns?" asked the maples, who 
 had learned to love Picea and no more made 
 fun of her old green dress. 
 
 But Picea answered, *^ Listen!" 
 
 "I hear only the wind and the river," re- 
 plied .a maple tree. 
 
 ** Listen!" repeated the spruce; and as the 
 maples were quiet, listening, one by one they 
 fell asleep. 
 
 But Picea was awake, listening to the call 
 of the river. 
 
 At last one night, while the old spruce was 
 dreaming, Picea answered that far call from 
 the valley. 
 
 *^Whom are you calling?" she asked. 
 
 And the river answered, **You!" 
 
110 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 IV.— The Book 
 
 As a tree feels the approach of a cold win- 
 ter and thickens the walls of its buds, so Picea 
 knew that her days in the forest were num- 
 bered. And one day the axman came, and her 
 tall spire, pointing so long to the stars, fell 
 crashing to earth. 
 
 Touching the old spruce in her fall, Picea 
 called, ** Mother, good-bye!" 
 
 And the old tree answered, *'My daughter, 
 may all go well with you out in the world!" 
 
 Picea came heavily down upon the pretty 
 little spruce tree. ^^I did not mean to harm 
 you," she said tenderly. **I had hoped that 
 you would take my place in the forest." 
 
 Shorn of boughs, her trunk was measured 
 into smaller lengths, and skidded, with many 
 others, down to the river. 
 
 **I heard you call, and I have come," she 
 said faintly to the river. **0h, your touch is 
 cold and chills my heart! Let me rest here 
 awhile; I am not ready for the dance." 
 
 * * Rest ! ' ' whispered the river. ^ ' Lie here by 
 
o 
 
 pq 
 < 
 
 t— I 
 
 a 
 < 
 
FOREST LEAVES 111 
 
 my bank in the shadow of your home and sleep 
 through the winter, dreaming that still the 
 wind plays over your boughs and sings to you 
 through the long winter night." 
 
 ^*I cannot dream that the wind caresses me," 
 sighed Picea, *'for your touch is cold, colder 
 than the north wind I" 
 
 **Let my song weave through your dreams," 
 murmured the river, *' until it is like the lul- 
 laby of the wind when you swung in your cone- 
 cradle on the spruce tree bough. When the 
 spring comes, I will wake you and bear you 
 away." 
 
 Picea lay silent, listening to the song of the 
 river. The dark, cold night came; but the 
 same stars as of old looked down upon her, the 
 same stars with the same message. And so 
 she slept, dreaming that once more she stood 
 upon the mountain side, binding her forehead 
 with boughs of green and lifting her taper 
 fingers toward the stars. 
 
 At last the winter sleep was over, for spring 
 had returned to the forest. Slowly the river 
 rose, lifting Picea and her sylvan friends. 
 
112 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Drivers guided them into the current. There 
 was the lulling motion of moving water ; then 
 the mountains went slipping by and the forest 
 faded into the past, and they floated far, far 
 down the changing valley, out into that great 
 world which Picea was now to know. 
 
 In a quiet harbor, the forest pilgrims found 
 their rest. A mill rose before them like a 
 castle; but to Picea it was the gateway into 
 the world, which she was to enter, dressed in 
 bark, and come forth in a garment of snow, 
 clothed like a bride. 
 
 One day the poet opened a book. Picea 
 remembered the touch of that hand. His look 
 drifted over pages white like the dogwood in 
 bloom, yet lingered upon one — the least of all 
 the poems ; and he seemed once more upon the 
 mountain side, listening to the song of the 
 spruce tree : 
 
 Formed and fashioned like a tree, 
 Shade I am and shield to thee, 
 How content, through sun, through rain, 
 In the forest to remain ! 
 
FOREST LEAVES 113 
 
 But when echoes thy far call, 
 
 Let a change my lot befall 
 
 Garment of the tree I doff, 
 Cast my crown of branches off, 
 
 Hasten from my sylvan home, 
 Thee to find, though far to roam, 
 In new service unto thee, 
 Still to serve humanity: 
 
 Bear thy message to the world 
 
 On my wings of white unfurled 
 
 Bear thy heart *s own message then 
 To the hearts of other men! 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 
 
 **01d nurses do not tell children about the 
 grass, but about the fairies that dance on the 
 grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees 
 for the dryads. ' ' --^Gilbert K. Chesterton, 
 
 I.— The Wood-Nymph 
 
 NCE upon a time there was a forest 
 that stretched for many miles over 
 mountain, valley, and plain, the 
 trees bound the soil with the strong 
 chain of their interwoven roots, and with their 
 interlacing branches formed a shelter for the 
 wild bird, a haunt for the deer, and a shade for 
 the sons of earth. 
 
 And there were other inhabitants of the for- 
 est—little wood-nymphs who dwelt within the 
 trees, like good thoughts in kindly hearts. The 
 clear-eyed Indian must have seen them— for 
 
 117 
 
118 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 were there not spirits of air and forest and 
 water? But this was many years ago. 
 
 One day, as the wood-nymph of the birch 
 tree guided the Indian's bark canoe, a water- 
 nymph brought news : 
 
 ^*I have seen a canoe, made of much wood, 
 at the mouth of the river ; and the faces I saw 
 were the color of shells." 
 
 *'The canoe has wings, and I blew it across 
 the sea," cried a sylph of the air. **The Pale 
 Face has come to make a home for himself and 
 his children. Some day he will possess the for- 
 est and the rivers." 
 
 Did she whisper warnings to the Indian in 
 his canoe? For he pricked his ears like a 
 startled deer, scenting an enemy who would 
 sweep away the Red Man and the forest that 
 he loved. 
 
 Two hundred rings and more had circled on 
 old oak tree since the landing of the big canoe, 
 when a pioneer stooped and drank from the 
 spring that bubbled among its roots. Then, 
 shouldering his axe, he followed the stream 
 
ONCE UPOx\ A TLME THERE WAS A FOREST 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 119 
 
 through the forest. In a favored spot he cut 
 down a tree; and where the tree fell, a cabin 
 grew. 
 
 To this cabin the pioneer brought his wife ; 
 and the wood-nymphs whose trees they had 
 taken for house and fire came, silent and un- 
 seen, to their bright hearth. When there were 
 three in the home, they gathered around the 
 rude cradle, and the child caught their whis- 
 pers and smiled. 
 
 As the child grew older, he used to follow 
 his father into the forest. Here day after day 
 the restless axe was swung, to give them a lit- 
 tle ground for corn and wheat. But some- 
 times the boy would run from the sound of the 
 noisy axe and wander up the stream. His fav- 
 orite spot was under the oak, where he would 
 often sit for hours, gazing down into the 
 spring. 
 
 As little Josiah sat here one day, longing for 
 someone to play with, suddenly a pair of soft 
 hands were clapped over his eyes: *^ Guess 
 who?" 
 
 * * I saw you in the spring ! ' ' And before the 
 
120 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 nymph even thought of her tree, he turned 
 and kissed her. 
 
 ** Why have you never come to play with me 
 before?'' 
 
 She sprang up, laughing. ^Tome, let us 
 play now, and make up for lost time." 
 
 So they played all day long in the forest; 
 and she showed him in which trees his top and 
 hoop^ his bat and sled, his box and basket grew. 
 
 ** Every day," said she, *'you will want 
 many, many things that grow in trees." 
 
 And true enough, he found that house and 
 hearth-fire, the fence around the clearing, the 
 chair and the table, his mother's spindle and 
 the oxen yoke, the wagon for the road and the 
 bridge and the boat for the river, all had grown 
 in the forest. 
 
 And then he became more and more inter- 
 ested in the things that came from the forest, 
 until he almost forgot the forest itself. As for 
 the little wood-nymph, he began to doubt 
 Whether she really did live within the oak — 
 or did she not mean some log-cabin on the 
 mountain ? 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 121 
 
 a 
 
 Nay, nay," she laughed, ^*I am the guard- 
 ian of this spring ; and as long as the oak tree 
 stands, it is my home." 
 
 '^Then as long as I live," he exclaimed, 
 *'your oak shall stand, though ^a thousand fall 
 at thy side!'" 
 
 **Aye, the thousands are falling," she said 
 sadly. *'Man needs much wood; but the rivers, 
 too, need trees." 
 
 Josiah pondered upon her words, and one 
 day he asked her what they meant. 
 
 ^^ Under the shade of this forest," she an- 
 swered, **and through the great sponge of its 
 leaf -mold and the root-bound earth beneath, 
 the rain soaks slowly, slowly down, to trickle 
 out at last in tiny springs. So leave the trees 
 upon the mountain side, for the forest is the 
 river's friend." 
 
 **As the forest protects the streams," he 
 cried, '^so I will protect the forest!" 
 
 However, he was now learning things out of 
 books that told him nothing about little wood- 
 nymphs who guarded springs ; and in the pass- 
 ing years, he had no time to think of the forest 
 
122 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 or the spring or of her who watched beside it. 
 All his thoughts were for the law of the world, 
 and all beautiful laws that were higher, and 
 all inner meaning that lies beyond the material 
 expression of things, faded from his mind. 
 
 As his inner ear closed more and more, his 
 outer ear caught louder the call of the world, 
 and one day he packed the old family carpet- 
 bag and started for the city. 
 
 Before Josiah left the clearing, he hap- 
 pened to think of the spring, in the water of 
 which he would drink to his success, and there 
 he remembered the wood-nymph. 
 
 ''Did you call me?" 
 
 ''No, I did not call you," he confessed. 
 
 "Ah, I heard your thought and came, before 
 the world should teach you to forget." 
 
 "But I will not forget," he cried, "and 
 every year you may look for me with the 
 laurel." 
 
 "Nay, you will forget the forest, you will 
 forget the spring, and her who watches by its 
 side. The world will tell you naught of little 
 nymphs who live within the trees ; and by-and- 
 
m 
 W 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 w 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 123 
 
 by you will not be able to see one, even though 
 you try — worse still, you will not care. Only 
 children are wise enough to know." 
 
 "Then give me the heart of a child, for you 
 I will never forget, nor my promise to save 
 the forest. I swear it on the oak: I will be 
 true." 
 
 **Nay, do not swear it on the oak," said she, 
 **for the oak will fall. Give me your hand 
 across the spring." 
 
 So he bared his head and knelt among the 
 ferns— but he found himself alone— alone in 
 the vast stillness of the forest. 
 
 ''You were only a dream after all!" he 
 breathed, though her eyes were blue in the 
 shadow. 
 
 Then he shook off the spell of the beautiful 
 solitude. 
 
 ''Away with dreams," laughed he, ''for life 
 is real I" 
 
 ^ And gripping his carpetbag, he strode down 
 the path beside the stream, out into the world, 
 where he became a great man. 
 
 The laurel blossomed around the spring. 
 
124 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 wherever the ferns made room. The laurel 
 faded and the snow fell and made a fairy for- 
 est all around, with only the little dark well of 
 water to break the pallor. Fifty Mays the 
 laurel bloomed, fifty winters the white snow, 
 fell. The wood-nymph waited beside the 
 spring, waited and watched for him. 
 
 II. — The Fall of the Oak 
 
 While the wood-nymph waited by the spring, 
 settlers were building homes beyond the moun- 
 tains. Every day the field grew larger and the 
 forest smaller. Even there she could hear the 
 echo of the axe among the hills. 
 
 Then one day a settler, passing by, stopped 
 to drink at the spring. 
 
 "Have you come to save the forest T' she 
 asked of him. 
 
 "Why, there is timber for all," he ex- 
 claimed, "and trees for bonfires." 
 
 ' ^ ^ Waste not, want not ! ' " was her warning ; 
 but he went on his way, clearing the ground to 
 farm. 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 125 
 
 Next a lumberman came by, carrying his axe 
 and his saw. 
 
 ''Have you come to save the forest ?'' she in- 
 quired. 
 
 /'The world wants wood," he replied, "and 
 there is plenty." And he pushed on his way, 
 sweeping the hills of trees. 
 
 "'Waste not, want not!'" chorused the 
 wood-nymphs ; but the bark of the axe and the 
 snarl of the saw were so loud that he could not 
 hear, and taking only one log from each tree, 
 he threw the rest away. 
 
 " 'Waste not, want not!' " they repeated; 
 but the slash that he left behind, dried in the 
 sun. Here a careless spark found its home, 
 and fire went roaring over the mountain. 
 
 And so the forest was conquered. The hills 
 lost their beauty and the ground its bond of 
 roots; the deer lost its covert, the wild bird 
 its shelter, and little rills laughed no more 
 among the mountains. 
 
 The spring rains fell and snow melted on the 
 peaks. Where there were no trees to hold the 
 water back, the swollen streams rolled brawl- 
 
126 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 ing to the rivers of the valley, and floods over- 
 spread the land. 
 
 The water-nymphs lifted their eyes to the 
 hills; but the roots that bound the earth, the 
 boughs that shaded the moist earth, were gone. 
 There was no forest well to hold the rain. 
 
 Then the wood-nymph of the oak tree, hear- 
 ing their plaint, strapped on her sandals of 
 bark. 
 
 '*I will go forth and seek one who will save 
 the forest." 
 
 With her green mantle on her arm, she 
 paused under the shadow of the oak : the bite 
 of the axe — ^how near ! 
 
 That same night, in the City of the World, 
 three hundred sat at long tables in a banquet 
 hall, but no one noticed the window where two 
 bright eyes kept watch. There were spark- 
 ling glasses and sparkling speeches; someone 
 arose amid applause. The little figure at the 
 window tiptoed to see, but only the voice of 
 one grown old, yet still very much alive, 
 reached her straining ear. 
 
< 
 
 o 
 w 
 
 H 
 
 Q 
 W 
 Q 
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 CO 
 
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THE MERRY GREENWOOD 127 
 
 Laughingly he greeted the three hundred— 
 for the shadow of the vine was upon him, and 
 upon all the three hundred. 
 
 ''Gentlemen/' said he, ''our first enemy was 
 the forest. When the Pale Pace came to make 
 his home, trees stood guard along the shore 
 and fortified the hills. The forest possessed 
 the land. Out of that wilderness, we have 
 builded a Nation. The trees made room for 
 the cabin. The forest gave place to the corn- 
 patch. You ask, what will become of the world 
 without any trees ? What would have become 
 of us with so many? Shall we freeze now, 
 that the future may be warm ? When the heat 
 of the sun gives out, 'what will poor Robin do 
 thenr 
 
 "Priends, the forest is ours, so long as it 
 lasts. Let us keep on cutting down trees, and 
 never think of to-morrow. With Whittier,, 
 we will gladly say : 
 
 *' 'I, grateful, take the good I find, 
 The best of now and here!' 
 
 ' ' Gentlemen, good-night I ' ' 
 
128 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Before the speaker sat down amid applause 
 and laughter, the one at the window, tilting on 
 her toes, caught sight of him ; it was Josiah. 
 
 Some time later, as he left the marble portal, 
 he noticed there a little maid in green. The 
 hour was so late, or rather so early, that he 
 wondered at her, and why she looked so sad. 
 
 "My home is in danger," she answered him. 
 
 '*My dear child, let me help you." 
 
 ''Then follow me." 
 
 Josiah grew breathless, so fast did she pilot 
 him through city streets to country. Was he 
 dreaming? Should he pinch his arm to see? 
 
 They skimmed over barren hills, robbed of 
 their trees by axe and fire; they passed de- 
 serted upland farms with their soil washed 
 away by rain, and lowland farms destroyed by 
 floods. Josiah spoke : 
 
 '^The Kansas poet wrote of 'walls of corn,' 
 a good idea." 
 
 She nodded wisely. "And what about our 
 'walls of trees'?" 
 
 "'Walls of trees'?" he repeated. "Yes, 
 there were 'walls of trees' along our coasts and 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 129 
 
 by the Lakes — but we are breaking down our 
 'walls of trees.' " 
 
 *'Come hither, and answer the question, 
 *Doesitpay?''' 
 
 She led him down to the river, jBowing 
 brown between bare banks. Something was 
 moving on the surface, white like a waterlily. 
 Josiah sprang forward: 
 
 *'Piek her up tenderly, 
 Handle with care '' 
 
 *'I'm not glass," said the water-nymph, lift- 
 ing her face above the flood. 
 
 * * Pardon me, ' ' said he. * * Can I be of any as- 
 sistance ? Will you join us here, and dry your 
 wet garments in the moonlight?" 
 
 **This is my home," replied the water- 
 nymph. 
 
 **A damp place," commented Josiah; **a 
 trifle muddy, too." 
 
 **You know why it is so," she complained; 
 *' where you have taken the trees from the hills, 
 the soil washes down into the streams." 
 
 *' Madam, I will immediately get Congress 
 
130 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 to appropriate a few millions and make your 
 damp little home all clean — dredge it out, you 
 know; sort of house clean it/' 
 
 **I wish you would do so every year/' she 
 said fretfully, shaking the clinging sand from 
 her hair, **or keep the hills out of the river, 
 where they don't belong." 
 
 *^That is a big proposition," returned Jo- 
 siah. *^ However, we might plant some trees 
 upon the hills, and keep them there. That 
 would be cheaper in the end. I should cer- 
 tainly like to make you ladies comfortable." 
 
 **I have been trying to turn your mill wheels, 
 but the streams are inconstant, for the springs 
 dry up. I want clean water for your cities. 
 I try to float your ships, but the silt chokes the 
 channels." 
 
 ** * Little drops of water, 
 Little grains of sand/ '* 
 
 repeated Josiah thoughtfully. 
 
 ^'That's just it!" she cried. 
 
 A sylph fluttered from the sky. ^^The for- 
 est draws the rain." 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 131 
 
 **And stores the rain," said the one in green. 
 
 **And metes it out pure to the springs," said 
 the water-nymph, ''that the streams may be 
 clear and constant." 
 
 And then they talked to him, and he was 
 glad to listen; for they were three very charm- 
 ing maidens, earnest and sweet in their en- 
 deavor to show that this earth should be made 
 a good abiding place for all. 
 
 Being old, Josiah got a little rheumatic sit- 
 ting upon the ground; and as Miss Butterfly 
 spread her wings to the starting breeze and 
 Miss Waterlily floated out upon the tide, he 
 arose stiffly. 
 
 My dear young ladies," he conceded at last, 
 
 since I was young, things have changed; 
 there are more people and fewer trees ; and it 
 will be wiser to treat the forest as a friend 
 rather than as an enemy. We must be more 
 careful about the cutting. Yes, yes, it will 
 pay ; and I wish I had the three hundred be- 
 fore me now, I would put another end to my 
 speech. To show a man his interest is doing 
 more than making laws. I would show that 
 
 6i 
 
132 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 we were misusing a good friend, killing off 
 the forest. And I would add the words of 
 Bryant, our poet: 
 
 ** 'Before these fields were shorn and tilled, 
 Full to the brim our rivers flowed; 
 The melody of waters filled 
 The fresh and boundless woods ; 
 And torrents dashed, and rivulets played, 
 And fountains sported in the shade.' 
 
 * ^ Ladies, good-night I ' ' 
 
 Josiah bowed. Butterfly fluttered off. 
 Waterlily drifted down the stream. He and 
 the one in green were left alone. 
 
 *^ You told me your home was in danger," he 
 said. * * I had well nigh forgotten my mission. ' ' 
 
 **You are prone to forget," she reproached 
 him. ^^ Follow me." 
 
 She led him toward the mountains. The 
 scene grew familiar. He looked down at the 
 half -hidden path, once a sandy road in the for- 
 est, now hardly a trail through brush. 
 
 *^Is this the road I remember?" he asked. 
 **Nigh sixty years ago I used to drive here 
 under the trees, past little springs hidden 
 among f ern«^ great wavy ferns, drive for miles 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 133 
 
 that seemed short to the little white meeting- 
 house that stood here, with the crystal branch 
 in front, singing over its stones. If we could 
 sing over hard places the way a brook does, 
 wouldn't it make it pleasant along the way?'' 
 
 She nodded and tripped along, toward the 
 forest, to a little spring under an oak tree. 
 Over the far mountain the dawn had kissed a 
 wandering cloud to a rosy hue, and it now 
 revealed the face of her who stood beside the 
 spring. What he had thought a green mantle 
 were twining oak leaves, and from their 
 shadow her eyes looked forth into his soul. 
 
 '' Forgive me!" he cried. ^'I forgot you— 
 forgot your voice in the sounds of the world, 
 forgot your eyes in the sights of the world, for- 
 got my promise and our tryst I" 
 
 She smiled— a little mockingly. 
 
 *'I will redeem my promise. I will serve 
 you, as you serve mankind. I will protect the 
 forest and save your tree. It is not too late." 
 
 But her face was lost in shadow as she 
 slipped back into her tree, with the echo, ''Too 
 late, too late!" 
 
134 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 As Josiah made his slow way down the 
 stream, he met a woodchopper entering the 
 forest; and though he cried, " '0 woodsman, 
 spare that tree !' " the man, unheeding, passed. 
 Soon the early morning stillness was broken 
 by the sound of a quick axe, followed by the 
 crash of a falling tree. 
 
 III. — The King of the Fokest 
 
 One summer morning a bugle call awoke the 
 echoes among the mountains, and a young man 
 came merrily over the hills. As he went, he 
 meted out land for farm and for forest, that 
 Nature might best serve Man. At sight of a 
 pretty maid in the wood he swung off his big 
 gray hat and smiled. 
 
 * ^Pardon me; I thought I was alone — alone 
 but for the wild things, the trees, and — God.'' 
 
 *'I live here in the forest," she replied. 
 
 '*I envy you," he said. 
 
 **Then if you love the trees, why that hatchet 
 in your hand?" 
 
 '^You don't think that I could cut down a 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 135 
 
 great big tree with this little hatchet?'' His 
 laugh rang merrily through the silent wood. 
 *' Madam, this forest has been given into my 
 keeping, to preserve, not to destroy, that it 
 may be a blessing now and in time to come." 
 As he spoke, he chipped the bark of an old 
 tree with a heavy shade. 
 
 ' ' Who woke me ? " And a wood-nymph ran 
 lightly from the tree. 
 
 *'I'm sorry. Miss," replied the young man, 
 abashed; *'I didn't know you were sleeping in 
 the tree. I was just marking it to be cut down, 
 for it is keeping these younger trees from 
 growing." 
 
 *^Yes, it is time for my home to go, for here 
 it is worse than useless." 
 
 As he chipped a second tree, another nymph 
 awoke. 
 ''Who cut into my tree ?" she asked sharply. 
 ''I did it with my little hatchet," he an- 
 swered frankly, ''for it is crowding better 
 trees. But I am right sorry to disturb all you 
 girls. I didn't know you were having a pic- 
 nic in the woods." 
 
136 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 6i 
 
 The trees are our homes," they replied. 
 
 A light dawned in the young man's face. 
 
 *'I thought Uncle Josiah was dreaming," he 
 murmured. '*Yes, yes, there are wood- 
 nymphs. I remember now the one who used 
 to rock my oaken cradle and sing me songs of 
 the beautiful forest that God had given to 
 Man. How one forgets as one grows up !" 
 
 He paused before a large, fine oak loath to 
 chip its bark. 
 
 ^^Hush, woodpecker!" cried a voice within. 
 **I was sleeping, dreaming that my oak had 
 been made into handsome furniture to gladden 
 a good man's home." 
 
 *^Such a tree would make a fine quarter- 
 sawed oak set," replied the young man. **I 
 wish I had it." 
 
 And he tapped upon a tall chestnut. 
 
 *^Who knocked upon my door?" 
 
 **I'm awful sorry, Miss, but I must ask for 
 your pagoda." 
 
 ^^Are you a forester?" she asked. 
 
 **A server of the forest," he replied. 
 
 '*Then take my home." 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 137 
 
 "And mine I'' 
 
 ** And mine 1" 
 
 The young man looked thoughtfully over the 
 trees, planning a new forest out of the old. 
 Yet suppose a fire should burn the forest and 
 the dream? 
 
 , **When your trees are cut," said he, **a lot 
 of slash won't be left lying around, ready for 
 a big bonfire. No, the branches, cut off and 
 given back to Mother Earth, will rot and en- 
 rich the soil, and so return to Life. And noth- 
 ing will be wasted. Don't you know that our 
 Teacher said, * Gather up the fragments that 
 remain, that nothing be lost?' It is good to 
 apply this to the great, beautiful wealth of for- 
 est which we find here for our use. That's 
 common sense. I'm a practical man, and want 
 to keep this old earth of ours in good working 
 trim, that's all." 
 
 *^ Hail I" cried the wood-nymphs, laughingly- 
 clasping hands and circling around him, call- 
 ing him king of the forest. 
 
 Of course, the forester felt a little shy, 
 though after all he was willing to join hands 
 
138 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 with them and play even ^^Ring-around-a- 
 rosy." 
 
 As the song of the dancers died away, a 
 nymph came running up: ^^The queen says, 
 'Bring hither the young man with the 
 hatchet.' '' 
 
 They led him, laughing, through the wood- 
 land way, to what ordinary eyes would call a 
 pile of slash, but which he perceived to be a 
 rustic throne, made from the loving arms of 
 the old oak tree, mantled with moss and ivy, 
 and holding her who had been chosen queen of 
 the wood-nymphs because she had saved the 
 forest. 
 
 As the forester approached, the queen, see- 
 ing the hatchet, frowned. Thrice he bowed, 
 and thrice he kissed her hand before she 
 spoke. 
 
 ''What have you to say, woodchopper?" 
 
 **But, Madam, that is not my name." 
 
 * * A lumberman, then ? ' ' 
 
 ''Not so.'' 
 
 "Then, friend, what is your name ?" 
 
 Friend,' that is right: I am a forester." 
 
 (( (- 
 
THE MERRY GREENWOOD 139 
 
 ^*So you have a mission in the forest?" 
 
 ^^ Madam," he replied, **it is written, 'The 
 earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.' 
 The earth, and the fullness of the earth, are 
 for all. The forest is for all." 
 
 His words dispelled her frown. 
 
 '^I have waited long for you," she said, '^but 
 I have not waited in vain." 
 
 ''Dear queen," said he, "in serving you, I 
 serve mankind." 
 
 "And so we bury the hatchet." 
 
 But the forester looked alarmed as he re- 
 plied, "O Madam, this is a useful little toma- 
 hawk, meant to mark those trees which the for- 
 est will give to Man." 
 
 "Aye, but be sure that the forest yearly 
 gives no more than it yearly grows." 
 
 "And the forest will live forever !" cried the 
 nymphs. 
 
 "Then long reign the queen of the wood- 
 nymphs!" 
 
 "And long rule the king of the forest I" 
 
 "The day departs," he said at last, "and I 
 must follow; but I will return with the snow 
 
140 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 and my axe shall do your bidding, my fairy 
 queen. For I will not forget my promise — I 
 will be true : I will serve you to the end of my 
 days." 
 
 '*Then give me your hand over running 
 water; remember, only he who is true, must 
 vow.'' 
 
 So he knelt in the ferns beside the stream 
 and vowed over running water. But when he 
 arose, the queen was gone, the nymphs were 
 flown — a hundred years had rolled away: he 
 saw the forest of the future, crowning the hills 
 from sea to sea. 
 
 Then this, too, vanished. He stood in the 
 limitless Present, alone with the trees. 
 
THE FRUIT OF 
 THE CHRISTMAS TREE 
 
THE FRUIT OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE 
 
 Not cone, nor candle, nor gifts, nor golden star. 
 
 LITTLE balsam-fir tree grew in a 
 
 forest, in a pleasant opening like 
 
 a nursery-room, where other baby 
 
 evergreens were blinking in the 
 
 sunlight, with only here and there 
 
 a mamma-tree holding her parasol over their 
 
 heads. While the older trees exchanged ideas 
 
 about the weather and other important topics, 
 
 the little trees sat in their cozy spot, playing 
 
 they were big trees, and as they grew taller, 
 
 trying to wear cones like their elders. They all 
 
 wore dresses of the real forest color, green, and 
 
 the same little frock did for summer and 
 
 winter. 
 
 *^It seems so odd," said a balsam-fir to a 
 
 birch tree, *Hhat you should take off your dress 
 
 as soon as cold weather comes." 
 
 *^And I have often been surprised," replied 
 143 
 
144 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 the birch tree, **that you should wear fir all 
 summer." 
 
 ^'However," put in the cedar tree, *'you 
 know that cedar keeps away moths." 
 
 **And if that doesn't mend matters," cried 
 the pine tree, sharp of wit, *Hhen please try; 
 my needles!" 
 
 '* Don't let us talk of clothes," begged the lit- 
 tle balsam-fir; *^let us play at being grown up, 
 and talk of the things that we'll do then." 
 
 '^Perhaps they won't leave us here to grow 
 up," said the spruce tree. *^As we grow big- 
 ger, we'll crowd one another and stand in each 
 other's light." 
 
 *^Then let us be happy while we may," 
 breathed the balsam-fir, **and love one an- 
 other." 
 
 **May you never be taken from us, Cho-koh- 
 tung!" exclaimed the pine tree. 
 
 Cho-koh-tung smiled at the old Indian name, 
 which means the balsam '^blisters" on her bark. 
 
 While the little trees were playing at being 
 grown up and talking of the great things that 
 they would do when as tall as the mamma-trees 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 145 
 
 holding parasols over their heads, real chil- 
 dren, who had grown up between brick walls 
 on a paved street, came trooping into their 
 nursery-room. 
 
 ^^When I am a man,'' cried Alec, the oldest, 
 **I'll be a forester and work in the woods !" 
 
 **And I," said Archie, **I am going to build 
 houses out of wood.'' 
 
 **I am going to live in a tree I" shouted little 
 Ray, and all laughed. 
 
 **What are you going to do, Emily?" asked 
 Archie of their sister. 
 
 **I should like to take poor city children into 
 the forest, that they might be as happy as I 
 am now," Emily replied. **See, Alec, what a 
 beautiful tree, so like a cone ! I think it must 
 have grown here just to make me glad." 
 
 And she sat down beside the little balsam- 
 fir while her brothers scampered about like 
 squirrels. 
 
 '^I have seen trees that looked like you, 
 every Christmas I have seen them," she said 
 to Cho-koh-tung, for it seemed as if she had 
 found a little woodland friend in the great 
 
146 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 forest. ^ * Those trees grew in painted tubs and 
 stood in warm rooms with tinsel and tapers on 
 their branches. They were Christmas trees.'' 
 
 ''What is a Christmas tree? And are tin- 
 sel and tapers the fruit of a Christmas tree?" 
 asked the balsam-fir ; but little Emily only in- 
 haled her fragrant breath. 
 
 ''Now I know how Christmas trees look be- 
 fore they come to the city," Emily continued. 
 "They are all steeped in sunshine and full of 
 the sweet, smelly breath of the woods, and I 
 think that is how they are able to make us so 
 happy — more happy even than the beautiful 
 gifts on their branches make us." 
 
 " 'Gifts?' " repeated the balsam-fir. "Are 
 gifts the fruit of a Christmas tree?" 
 
 While Cho-koh-tung was wondering what 
 kind of a tree a Christmas tree was. Alec came 
 shouting around the pine tree. ' ' Here is a real 
 Christmas tree. See, Sister, it has green 
 candles all over it." 
 
 Emily looked at the soft new tips of the pine 
 tree, erect like tapers. 
 
 "Yes, this must be one, too," she said. 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 147 
 
 ** What a gay little place ! All the pretty ever- 
 green trees keep Christmas here together, 
 though some of the child-trees come to town to 
 make us glad at Christmas time." 
 
 ^^Dear one, would it make you glad should I 
 leave my forest home and come to you at 
 Christmas time ? ' ' asked Cho-koh-tung. ' ' Yet 
 tell me, what is Christmas time?" 
 
 Did Emily understand ? For she smiled and 
 said, *' Christmas time means happy time, and 
 the giving of gifts!" 
 
 And then the merry band of children went 
 laughing into the forest. 
 
 *'They talked of what they would do when 
 they grew up," said the pine tree. *'As for 
 myself, I expect to be changed into something 
 useful to Man." 
 
 *^As the simshine blesses us now," said Cho- 
 koh-tung, *^so a way will come whereby we in 
 turn may bless with the sunbeams stored away, 
 transformed into the sunlight of joy. I hope 
 it may be my mission to be something that 
 children love. That will be better than living 
 my own life in the forest." 
 
148 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 **A child loves her little chair," said the pine 
 tree, **yet never thinks of the oak that took a 
 century to grow the wood. ' ' 
 
 *^If I could make children glad," re- 
 plied Cho-koh-tung, ^Hhat would be my re- 
 ward." 
 
 **Then be happy," whispered the sunshine, 
 "for the children who come to the forest see 
 you and rejoice in your beauty." 
 
 The little balsam-fir looked up gladly to the 
 caress of the sunlight. "I am happy, but the 
 habit of playing at being grown up leads me 
 to plan for the time when youth is gone and 
 the beauty of youth." 
 
 ** * Rejoice in the days of thy youth!' " re- 
 peated the sunshine. 
 
 So Cho-kuh-tung ceased thinking of the fu- 
 ture and was happy in each passing hour, try- 
 ing to grow cones upon her branches like the 
 tall young balsam-fir near by. 
 
 "Christmas time means happy time, and the 
 giving of gifts," she mused; "I wonder if I 
 can grow pretty cones to give to Emily when 
 she returns." 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 149 
 
 **Have you nothing else to give?" asked the 
 sunshine. 
 
 The little balsam-fir did not reply ; she was 
 thinking, how sweet were sunlight and wind 
 and forest odors, grass and moss and flowers, 
 bird and bee and butterfly; how sweet to live! 
 
 One day in December men entered the nur- 
 sery-room with axes in their hands. 
 
 As they were passing, Cho-koh-tung called, 
 '^Takemel'' 
 
 "Are you anxious to leave us?" asked the 
 spruce tree. "Your life has just begun. Life 
 is sweet I" 
 
 "Already I am crowding my little sister on 
 the other side," answered Cho-koh-tung. "Be- 
 sides, it is the child-trees that go to town at 
 Christmas time." 
 
 "Cho-koh-tung is going to town!" whis- 
 pered the trees excitedly. 
 
 "Will you bring me something from town?" 
 cried her little sister eagerly. 
 
 "When you come back," asked the cedar 
 tree, "will you tell us all about the wonderful 
 things you have seen?" 
 
150 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Cho-koh-tung smiled a little, knowing she 
 would never return. 
 
 Then the men cut down the balsam-fir, 
 wrapped her ruffled skirts with twine, and 
 bound her with several other evergreen trees 
 of her own height that they had taken from 
 the forest. These were piled on a hay-rack and 
 hauled away and loaded upon a platform car. 
 After a swift, astonishing ride, they found 
 themselves in a place where there were hard 
 pavements instead of grass and moss, and tall 
 buildings instead of trees. 
 
 The sounds of the city frightened the little 
 trees. They clung close together and whis- 
 pered of home, until one by one they were 
 taken away. 
 
 At last it was Cho-koh-tung 's turn. She was 
 hoisted into a wagon and driven to a brick 
 house and set up in a tub in a darkened room. 
 
 '^Will it always be night?" she asked, but 
 no one made reply. 
 
 She now observed upon the walls festoons of 
 hemlock and holly wreaths, though these re- 
 minders of the forest only made her more 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 151 
 
 homesick. She began to talk to the chairs, 
 which seemed quite at ease, and asked them 
 why she was kept a prisoner. 
 
 **Wait and see," answered the armchair. 
 
 So the little balsam-fir was patient. 
 
 By-and-by, when it really was night, two 
 people entered the room, and the man lit three 
 great stars hanging from the ceiling. Cho- 
 koh-tung could now see that the trees which 
 had been made into furniture looked very com- 
 fortable and at home. 
 
 **I hope that I, too, may become part of this 
 pleasant home, ' ' she thought wistfully. ' ' Per- 
 haps after awhile they will let the children 
 come to me, when I will tell them stories of the 
 forest. I may have a long and happy life 
 here." 
 
 She stood like a statue in her tub, very much 
 interested in what the people were doing. 
 They brought in boxes and baskets and a step- 
 ladder, and the man fastened a great gold star 
 to her topmost branch. 
 
 ' ' Thank you, ' ' said the little balsam-fir. ' ' I 
 am sure it looks very pretty. How I wish the 
 
152 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 children could see me now! I wonder, oh, I 
 wonder — yes, the wish that led me from my 
 forest home is to be realized: I am to be a 
 Christmas tree!'' 
 
 She was so overjoyed at the thought that the 
 star trembled. ^* There must be a draft in the 
 room,'' said the mother. 
 
 Cho-koh-tung rejoiced in the silver paper 
 icicles, the glittering balls, the festoons of tin- 
 sel, the tapers, the dancing dolls, and the dolls 
 with gilded wings that fluttered to her 
 branches. In the tub at her feet they put green 
 moss and a whole barnyard of wooden animals, 
 and all around were placed the blessed toys. 
 
 *^The children will gather around me to re- 
 ceive their gifts," she thought; ^^yet sweetest 
 of all, I shall give them myself!" 
 
 The mother and father stood off and sur- 
 veyed the tree, smiled at each other, glanced 
 upward where four cherubs were sleeping, 
 turned out the stars that hung from the ceil- 
 ing, and tiptoed from the room. 
 
 But, so great was her anticipation, the little 
 balsam-fir could not sleep. With all her gay 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 153 
 
 festooning, she wished to dance, as when she 
 used to toss her ruffled skirts on windy days 
 and show their silvery lining. 
 
 **You better stand still, little balsam, and 
 be philosophical, like Diogenes of old," warned 
 the painted tub. 
 
 ^^Who was Diogenes?" asked the balsam- 
 fir. 
 
 ^*0h, he was like you, and lived in a tub," 
 laughed the book under the tree. '*I know all 
 about such people. Then there were three men 
 in a tub. But before we proceed further, I 
 move we have a little light on the subject." 
 
 ^^Dear me, I cannot find my match!" cried 
 a taper. 
 
 ^^No, I have struck," declared a pine match 
 quite black in the face, so the window shades 
 rolled up and let in the light from the street- 
 lamp. 
 
 * ' Tub, ' ' asked the balsam-fir, * ' where did you 
 live before you came here?" 
 
 '*In a store," promptly replied the tub. 
 
 ''Yes, but before that?" 
 
 *'I was a cypress tree and grew in the 
 
154 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 water," answered the tub, '^and I think that is 
 how I came to be a tub." 
 
 *'I sailed right out of a poplar tree," said 
 the toy ship. 
 
 **And I was made in America!" shouted a 
 wooden soldier. * * Forward, right, march ! ' ' 
 
 **Look out, or I'll run over you!" cried the 
 little express- wagon. **I'm Old Hickory, you 
 know. Miss Dolly, won't you take a drive?" 
 
 ' * Thank you, but I prefer to ride my hobby, ' ' 
 replied the doll, mounting the maple hobby- 
 horse. **A little exercise will do me good." 
 
 **You needn't put on such airs because you 
 are bisque and kid," remarked the black wal- 
 nut writing-box. 
 
 ** Sawdust!" laughed the set of tools with 
 hornbeam handles. 
 
 **Yes, I saw dust," added the saw, as the 
 hobby went prancing by. 
 
 '* Cedar pun?" yelled the pencil. 
 
 ** Order!" rapped the hammer. 
 
 **I am always in order," declared the desk. 
 *^ My home," it continued, reminiscently, '^was 
 in Hhe spreading chestnut tree.' " 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 155 
 
 **And I," said a work-basket, ''was the 
 withes of a willow." 
 
 ''We were part of a pretty birch tree/' ex- 
 plained the spools in the basket. 
 
 "Whoever would dream that I was once a 
 spruce tree ? ' ' inquired the book. ' ' Little bal- 
 sam, of all my forest friends, you alone remain 
 unchanged.'' 
 
 "Our good old forest days are over," replied 
 Cho-koh-tung, "but new service has begun— 
 to gladden the hearts of children. Little will 
 the children know of the tree-lives given up 
 for their sake, yet a sacrifice is not a sacrifice 
 that brings a greater j oy. " 
 
 "Love should inspire service," responded 
 the book, "and service be the keynote of ac- 
 tion." 
 
 "So, one and all, we rejoice in this end," 
 said Cho-koh-tung. 
 
 "And our aim shall be to give all the joy that 
 we can," exclaimed the pop-gun. 
 
 "I move we pass a resolution to that effect," 
 said the express-wagon. 
 
 'Pon't 'put the cart before the horse,' " 
 
 (( 
 
156 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 grumbled the hobby. **I think I should have 
 made the motion." 
 
 **Miss Dolly," continued the express-wagon, 
 quite unmoved, ^'please hop upon the desk and 
 lead the meeting." 
 
 *'I should be chairman," murmured a small 
 rocking-chair. ^^Dear me, your tongue can't 
 stop waggin'." 
 
 ^^Any more than you can keep quiet," re- 
 torted the little express. 
 
 *' Shall I keep the minutes of the meeting?" 
 asked the Waterbury watch. 
 
 ^^No, the pencil will do that," replied the 
 doll, *'^but you may second the motion." 
 
 *'I rise to a point of order!" cried a tack 
 in the tool-chest. 
 
 **The tack has the floor," called the doll. 
 
 **I move that the wooden soldier keep away 
 from the toy ship," said the tack, ^"^or it may 
 be taken for a Noah's ark." 
 
 '' ^That was the most unkindest cut of all,' " 
 said the hatchet sharply. 
 
 *'I should say so," sighed a spool. 
 I thought I would join the ne^Yy^^^ replied 
 
 a 
 
CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 157 
 
 the wooden soldier stiffly, *'for where there is 
 a tub, there must be water." 
 
 ''1 fear you would run aground in me," said 
 the tub. 
 
 *'That was a dry remark," observed the 
 book. 
 
 *'We have forgotten our good resolution," 
 said the doll. 
 
 ''All in favor of it say 'Aye,' " called a 
 needle in the work-basket. 
 
 "And all opposed say 'Nay,' " whinnied the 
 hobby-horse. 
 
 "I appoint the wooden soldier sergeant-at- 
 arms to keep order," said the doll. "You must 
 stop your cutting up." 
 
 "I'm not," snapped the scissors. 
 
 *'I hear them talking upstairs," warned the 
 wooden soldier, sentried by the door, "and 
 Father is coming downstairs to put the cat 
 out." 
 
 "Hurry back to your places!" cried the 
 doll; while the wooden soldier hastily pre- 
 sented arms to help her off the desk. 
 
 What a whisking and scurrying there was. 
 
158 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 to be sure, though all that Father found was a 
 demure little Christmas tree and some very se- 
 date and innocent-looking toys. But Cho-koh- 
 tung smiled as she drooped her green boughs 
 over the truant toys at her feet, the loving 
 sharers in her joy of giving, which makes the 
 joy of living. 
 
 She could hardly wait for the morrow, but 
 Christmas really came at last. Then four chil- 
 dren, almost before the dawn, flew pell-mell 
 down the stairs and rushed upon the Christ- 
 mas tree — one, two, three boys and a girl — 
 little Emily and her brothers I 
 
 ** Are you not glad that I came to you ?" Cho- 
 koh-tung eagerly asked of little Emily. 
 
 But Emily only laughed as she danced 
 around the tree. 
 
 Again Cho-koh-tung asked wistfully, ''Are 
 you not glad that I came to town at Christmas 
 time?" 
 
 But Emily only smiled as she held her doll 
 close. 
 
 Then Cho-koh-tung would have shaken her 
 ornaments until they tinkled and glittered for 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 159 
 
 the children's delight; but no, it was the gifts 
 that made them gay. And so Cho-koh-tung 
 could not but be happy, too, though she longed 
 to be even more beautiful than she was. 
 
 And when evening came, and the family 
 was gathered around the long, bright table. 
 Father slipped into the parlor and flashed light 
 after light from the colored tapers over the 
 tree. There she stood, a blaze of splendor, 
 blinking as she used to blink when the sun- 
 light sparkled on her snow-laden boughs. Yes, 
 Cho-koh-tui]fg used to wear a mantle of snow- 
 ermine and a crown of ice-diamonds and stand 
 like a princess on an alabaster floor ; yet still 
 was she a beautiful princess of the forest, 
 wearing her green velvet gown, and come to 
 town at Christmas time to make the children 
 glad I Father drew up the shades that pass- 
 ersby might see her beauty, and then rolled 
 back the sliding-doors. 
 
 **Are you not glad that I gave up cones for 
 Christmas candles?" she asked, as little Emily 
 clapped her hands for joy ; and Emily laughed, 
 not that she heard what the balsam was saying, 
 
160 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 but was not this the prettiest Christmas tree in 
 
 all the world! 
 
 ■ 
 
 Then the balsam-fir longed to cast off her 
 glittering garment and make herself known; 
 yet after all, it was the tinsel robe and taper 
 crown that gave the children joy. 
 
 **Why does the tree wear a star?" asked 
 Archie of his father. 
 
 Then Father told why the tree wore a star, 
 in the story of the Christ-child, Who left His 
 heavenly home to make us good and glad, be- 
 cause *^God so loved the world." 
 
 ** And now who will tell what is the real fruit 
 of a Christmas tree?" he asked. 
 
 * ^ The golden star, ' ' said Emily, softly. 
 
 ^^Gifts," shouted the boys, ^^giftsl" 
 
 But Father shook his head. 
 
 Merrily passed the holiday week. Children 
 from blocks around came in to see the pretty 
 Christmas tree, and poor children were 
 brought in to share the gifts. By New Year's 
 night the candles were burned to their sockets : 
 Cho-koh-tung's task was done. 
 
 That New Year's night, when the house was 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 161 
 
 very still, and for the last time Cho-koh-tung 
 stood in her gay trappings, a little one in white 
 stole softly down the stairs, and Emily, by the 
 light of the lamp without, came swiftly to the 
 tree. 
 
 **I have been dreaming," she said, "and I 
 dreamed of a beautiful evergreen tree that I 
 found last summer in the forest. ' ^ 
 
 The balsam-fir leaned closer. *'0 little 
 Emily," she asked, "has my Christmas dress 
 so changed me?" 
 
 Then Emily reached up and gathered the 
 glittering boughs into her arms. "I am so 
 glad, so glad!" she laughed. "Beautiful lit- 
 tle fir tree, why did you come to me?" 
 
 "Who told me that Christmas time means 
 happy time, and the giving of gifts?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember." 
 
 "And I thought, I have nothing to give. 
 Did you think fir cones were pretty? Yet no, 
 you would not have cared for them. Do they 
 look like candles on a Christmas tree? Then 
 the thought came — I tossed aside the dream of 
 years of life, and having nothing else to give, 
 
162 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 I gave myself : for the real fruit of a Christmas 
 tree is what lies back of gifts and giving." 
 
 **I know, I know," cried Emily, as the bal- 
 sam-fir seemed to stoop and enfold her, *Hhe 
 real fruit of a Christmas tree is love I" 
 
 ''And to love is to give." 
 
 Someone had missed Emily and was calling 
 her. 
 
 '^Good-night, little Christmas tree!" she 
 said, lifting her sweet face once more to the 
 glad touch of the evergreen bough. 
 
 "To-morrow she will think it all a dream," 
 thought Cho-koh-tung, watching Emily pass 
 through the dim light and up the dark 
 stairs. 
 
 Then the Christmas tree, feeling no more 
 the weight of her decorations, lovingly 
 drooped her head, drooped it a little lower 
 over her gay burden of children's joys. They 
 seemed to be falling from her, even as her win- 
 ter burden of snow used to vanish in the sun- 
 light. Was she sleeping? 
 
 "Sleej), little tree, sleep!" sang the wind 
 without. 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE 163 
 
 *^ Will you wake me when morning comes ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 *^ Sleep, little tree, sleep!" said the wind 
 soothingly. 
 
 ** Sleep I" sang the drowsy snow. 
 
 ''Nay, you will not wake me, and so I will 
 not sleep," said the Christmas tree, cheerfully 
 holding up her ornaments. 
 
 '^ Sleep, sleep!" everything seemed to whis- 
 per. 
 
 And so at last she fell peacefully asleep, 
 dreaming that happy children were circling 
 around her, clasping their Christmas gifts, yet 
 loving her best of all ; and still she seemed to be 
 sleeping, in the morning light, when the little 
 boys came to her for a last look on their way 
 to school ; and still she slept as Emily touched 
 her lightly at parting. 
 
 **Last night I dreamed the prettiest dream 
 of you and me, ' ' laughed Emily gaily. 
 
 But the Christmas tree did not hear. 
 
 An hour later. Mother and the maid took off 
 the festive decorations and laid them away for 
 another year and another tree. 
 
164 FOREST FANCIES 
 
 Ci\ 
 
 This is the happiest Christmas that we 
 have ever had," said the mother. 
 
 **The children were never so glad," an- 
 swered the maid. 
 
 **I think," said the mother, smiling, 'Hhat 
 the little fir tree brought to us the real spirit 
 of Christmas."